A New Voice
by amyownfie
Summary: A shy girl from england is thrown into the centre of baal's biggest threat, why? Because she can read people's minds. Isabel is thrown across the universe, moving form one threat to another while observing some of the stranger details in sam and jack's relationship. Part 1 of the souls saga.
1. Approached

AN- So I've rewritten this story and re-uploaded it because there were some things that I'm not happy with and have wanted to change for a while but I've finally gotten around to it. Please enjoy the updated version of A New Voice.

 **Chapter 1: Approached**

A young girl of fourteen sat in her science class watching in awe as her teacher explained all about the universe and its complexity. Her brown hair slid in front of her eyes for the umpteenth time that day, she wasn't too surprised because she was redirecting her attention from her lecturing teacher and her notes. She was startled to find that her teacher had stopped mid-sentence because of a knock on the door, he usually carried on talking and talking until he had finished. He walked to the door that the girl sat right in front of and started talking to the three people in dress blues standing right outside his classroom.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, we were wondering if we could take up a few minutes of your class time to see if your students can figure out a problem. We have spent the past hour going round all of the classes but nobody has worked it out." The woman sounded different, foreign. After a few seconds of reflection she worked out that the woman was American.

"Well, you could but I'm in the middle of a lecture, we've just started on astrophysics and I don't want them to completely forget about what I've told them." Her teacher replied, he was deadly serious but the woman wouldn't back down.

"Well, it's a good job that I'm a major in astrophysics. Would you mind if I heard the rest of your lecture before I address the class?" She was going to get her own way no matter what.

Her teacher beckoned them in and turned to the student by the door. "Hastings, you're going to have to share the bench with our guest for a bit. Is that OK?" He didn't let her answer but told the woman to sit next to her.

As she continued to write her notes, a blonde woman sat down next to her looking at the student with deep blue eyes. "So, do you enjoy astrophysics?" she was talking in the middle of the lecture! That was a serious risk, even if she was more important and smarter than the teacher; he wouldn't let an interruption like that go unpunished, usually.

The student hesitated for a second when she replied. "Yeah, I love it. I've written a paper on my views and theories on wormhole physics but everybody said that I was too young for anyone to take it seriously." The student went back to note taking when the woman replied.

"You know that your teacher was wrong about one thing." She paused as the student started muttering to herself. "What's wrong?"

"It's just that, he's never wrong. I didn't even notice until you said that." The student suddenly threw her hand up to the dislike of her teacher. He simply nodded to her and she addressed the class and her teacher. "You said that the Milky Way was the biggest galaxy in the universe but the galaxy IC 1101 is the biggest." She silently placed her hand by her side and looked down at her notes. Her teacher had a scowl on his face.

"She is right; we observed it only last month." The woman informed him. The teacher was not happy but he wasn't going to say anything.

"I guess we'd better get your problem solved before you correct my whole lecture." He retreated to the back of the classroom muttering to his self.

The woman stood at the front of the class and started to talk. "Alright, my name is Colonel Samantha Carter from the US Air Force and I have been sent to see if anyone can solve this problem." She placed her memory stick into the computer and a single photo came onto the board. It was of a night sky full of stars. "Let's pretend that an enemy aircraft was in a geo stationary orbit but we didn't know where, how would you find it?" the whole class was silent, the Colonel turned to look at the student she had sat next to, to see her frantically scribbling on her paper.

Just before the colonel had started to speak the student's hand tore into the air, much to Sam's delight. "Ok then, what's your idea of a solution?"

The student started to speak quite shyly at first but gained confidence to repeat herself, so everyone could hear. "Erm, you could use an infra-red light filter to detect the energy being given off by the aircraft's engines." The student retreated to the sanctuary of her seat as the military woman stared in shock.

"Wow, that's a much simpler solution than I would have come up with. What's your name?" the woman was looking directly at the student. When the mysterious student lifted her head to speak; the colonel saw that the student had bright blue eyes just like hers.

"My name is Isabel." The student looked a little bewildered at the fact that she was being appreciated for once.

"Well then Isabel, do you mind if I took a look at that paper with you?" After her comment, she saw that Isabel's eyes were full of disbelief. "If that's ok with your teacher of course?" The colonel looked toward the teacher in the back of the class with a hopeful smile on her face.

"That would be fine since she knows more about this subject than me. Hastings, bring me your planner so I can write a note in it." As she carried out his request the whole classroom was silent in shock and disbelief. "Off you go, and take your stuff with you. I'll give Katie your homework sheet if you're not back in time."

Isabel returned to her chair and hastily grabbed her bad, throwing her belongings into it carelessly. She turned to Katie and gave her quick thanks and left the room with the air force officers. "Where are we going?" the student asked.

"I'm going to take you to the staff room so we can have a look at that paper. Do you have it with you?" the woman sounded really eager to see it.

"Yeah, I do." The student answered simply as he was led by the colonel to the staff room.

"I guess you're wondering why we came to schools in England to pitch this problem to, or more specifically ninth graders, year tens. Well, it's because we needed a fresh pair of eyes for theoretical astrophysics problems. Now, let's see that paper." Sam observed the paper for several minutes as a grin broadened on her face. "This is amazing; you have detailed every possibility and accounted for any variation that would require you to assume something. This is phenomenal! I need to contact my superiors right away. Major, can you give me the radio?"

"Here you are Colonel. It's on a secure frequency. Should she stay or should I take her back to her lesson?" One of the silent men asked her.

"You'd better take her back to class; she isn't cleared to know about this conversation." She turned to look at Isabel with guilt on her face. "I really love what you've written but I need to get this to my superiors right away." 'This' meaning her wormhole physics paper. "Here, this is my card and the number to contact me at my post. Luckily for you I work in deep space radar telemetry. It was great to meet you."

"It was great to meet you too ma'am." Isabel replied a little melancholy but respectfully. "Thank you for looking at my paper. When I finish some of my other work I'll send it to you."

"I look forward to seeing it." The colonel replied. With that Isabel was ferried out of the room by the Major. "Oh, Major Davis. When you get back to DC tell the board about the paper, I'll fax it to them."

"You won't be accompanying us?" Major Davis asked quizzically.

"No, I need to get back as soon as possible but you need to speak to the Prime Minister." The door was closed but it didn't stop Isabel from hearing a high pitched humming sound. Turning around she saw a bright white light leak through the bottom of the door to the displeasure of Major Davis. "Sorry." She apologised simply as she was forced back down the hallways to her classroom, thinking it would be best if she tried to forget what she had just seen.


	2. Better Late Than Never

**Chapter 2: Better Late Than Never**

Colonel Samantha Carter and General Jack O'Neill were sat in the commissary deep in conversation; it was almost as if they were the only people in the room. Sure they were a few SFs but that was to be expected at 0300 hours. SG1 had gated in about an hour ago under enemy fire and were ferried off to Janet. _'Go get something to eat, doctor's orders.'_ Sam really loved Janet but when she tried to set them up, urgh! What was Sam going to say? _'No, I need to figure out the device SG5 found.'_ She knew what Janet would say, so she sucked it up and went to the commissary with the rest of SG1. Daniel and Teal'c had left about a half hour ago, just before the General arrived, so it was just them.

"Stop blaming yourself sir, you couldn't have known that my dad was going to die. It was two months ago. He won't walk in and curse you for not doing anything to help. He chose his fate, not me or you." Sam was looking directly at him but Jack was looking down at his red jello. "I know that you're beating yourself up. He told me that when he was implanted with Selmak that he had made you promise to look after me. Just because I nearly died today and you weren't there to help doesn't mean that you broke that promise."

"Yes it does, Sam! I promised that I would look after you out there and I broke it when I took command. I have let the team down and I have let him down. It's my fault that your near death experience happened today. You were supposed to be finishing wedding plans but I kept you here." He looked up to her trying to translate the pain that he was n through his damp, dark brown eyes. "It's my fault and you know it. It tears me apart to watch the three of you go out and to know that you might not be coming back. That's the worst part is that I can't be there with you when it all comes crashing down on top of you, I'll be sat there in my office and all you will be left as is paperwork. And it tears me apart to know that I can't even help you here on Earth because of that Shanahan guy!" A small tear rolled down his cheek and splashed onto the table. "It breaks my heart Sam, it really does."

Sam looked directly into Jack's eyes with a most Teal'c like expression on her face. "Jack, I called off the wedding." With that, Jack's jaw dropped as he gaped at Sam. He was shocked firstly by the use of his first name and secondly by the fact that she had called off the wedding. "I can't tell you why for the same reason we lied during the Za'tarc testing. A plain, simple four letter word that I never really shared with Pete." Was Sam flirting with Jack? From his point of view she was leaning over the table seductively. "My dad once told me that regulations shouldn't be the only thing that is stopping me from being happy and so by being with Pete I thought I could make myself happy with him. But it never worked because there was one person that I had a deeper, more meaningful connection with."

Jack leaned over the table also, a fraction of an inch away from her lips, he felt her breath on his lips as he spoke. "And who would that be with?" he breathed alluringly.

"I don't think you need to ask that question." She stood up and walked away while Jack savoured the view of his stunning second in command's equally as stunning six. "I'll see you in the briefing General." She called back to him. She turned around and flashed a rare smile at him that lit up the room. Jack smiled to himself and left for his quarters. If he was going to get any sleep before the briefing after the moment he just had with Sam then he needed to grab as much as he could get.

Jack heard all about their near death experience and how they narrowly escaped Ba'al's jaffa as they made their way to the stargate. They had successfully found out what Ba'al was making a new ship for but they weren't able to destroy it. "How long until it gets here?" Jack threw a bombshell into their debriefing, there was no point pretending, they were either going to stop it or be enslaved, and he wasn't going to spend most of the time he had left for a briefing.

"It's going to take three weeks to get here. It's going to travel cloaked but we don't know where it's going to emerge. But I might know someone who can help. A few months ago I met a young English teenager who had written a paper on wormhole physics and I didn't find anything wrong with it. She wrote theories on one way and two way travel through a wormhole. It was almost as if she knew about the stargate." Colonel Carter threw at the general. It was an idea but he was bound to dig a little deeper.

Before he could ask any, Walter walked up the stairs from the control room. "Sir, there's a phone call waiting for Colonel Carter. She says that she's the girl with the wormhole theory paper." Without waiting for someone to talk, Sam ran over to the phone and picked it up. As she spoke, she signalled that this was the girl that she was talking about.

"How do you know about that?" Sam exclaimed, she had an awed look on her face. _'You left your hat and memory stick in the classroom so when I got back I was sent to give them to you but you weren't there and you hadn't left. That's when I remembered the light in the room.'_ Sam still looked shocked when she replied. "Maybe you should try to get over here. I'll send you an address via your school, and a plane ticket."

"Colonel, you have three weeks until the girl is dropped and all hell breaks loose." Jack informed her. "What did she know?"

"She figured that I must have been beamed up. The light, the sudden disappearance and an episode of Star Trek, she just had to join the dots." Sam informed him. If that girl could figure that out then how long until she figured everything else out? "Sir, she could be the answer we're looking for." She looked at the three men with a sparkle in her huge blue eyes, all too glad that they were giving the young woman a chance.

Daniel finally spoke but he was less than optimistic. "Sam, Jack, she could be a huge security risk! Is it really worth it? Yeah she could save the world but if she let one word slip about what goes on here then the world would be better off being destroyed." Daniel received too many dirty looks. "What did I say?"

"Daniel, if Colonel Carter can trust her then we all probably can, I mean come on! How many times has Carter messed up?" Jack butted in, protecting Sam. In his eyes you could read the simple words _not enough_.

"Indeed, Colonel Carter can be trusted, and in turn, so can this young warrior." Teal'c agreed. It was obvious that Daniel had been outvoted. He knew when to back down and so left the room.

"Colonel, shouldn't you be arranging a flight?" Jack asked in a low whisper. "And I have a call to place. If your plan is even going to lift off then we're going to need to get that girl security clearance. What was her name?"

Sam gulped before she spoke. "Isabel, Isabel Hastings."


	3. Confusion

**Chapter 3: Confusion**

Isabel stepped out of the plane shaking, maybe from excitement or maybe with fear. She walked down the strange halls, looking at people in strange clothes and hearing voices with strange accents. She felt as if she stood out in her plain black blazer, knee length white lace dress and black high heels, everybody else was wearing bright colours and adventurous patterns. She continued to walk along the corridors and watched as people smiled and greeted her, she was amazed that everyone was so friendly. Spotting her suitcase, she grabbed the handle and allowed it to roll along behind her.

Three people, one woman and two men, wearing a familiar arrangement of dress blues approached her as confidently and calmly as possible. "Hi, I'm Colonel Samantha Carter, but you already know that. These are the two men you met last time, Major Davis and Lieutenant Grogan. We're here to escort you to our facility." The woman spoke. Isabel accompanied the Colonel to a black unmarked vehicle. She stopped abruptly; worried that she might have made a mistake. "Don't worry, it's just so no one can track our route. You'll be completely safe."

"Are you sure? It looks to me like you're here to abduct me!" Isabel was worried; she had no idea what to do.

"I promise that we're not here to abduct you, I've been there before and it's not fun. You'll be completely safe, I promise." The colonel looked directly at the teenager only to see her nod in reply and walk towards the vehicle. Sam followed her and closed the door. "We'll need you to sign this non-disclosure agreement just so we can be sure that what you're about to see and do remains a secret."

"Sure, of course. You do need to trust me after all." She signed the form and sat uneasily on her seat. She pulled a photo out of her blazer pocket. It was of her and a few other people, one blonde with braces and the other had an artificial looking shade of red hair. She looked at the picture and smiled. She missed her friends, they were too important to her to lose, but by not telling them she was leaving for Colorado, they might never trust her again. "How do you know I'm not a mass murderer? I mean I'm not, but how can you be sure?"

"We did a background check; you are person who cares about people and the importance of their lives too much to even think about killing people." Sam smiled at Isabel. "Who are they?" she asked, indicating the picture in Isabel's hands.

"They're my best friends, more like my family actually, Emily and Leila. You were right, I do care about people but you missed out the part that it kills me to lie to the people I care about. They have no idea where I am, I'm supposed to meet them at the beach in two days and when I don't show up, they're never going to trust me again." A tear rolled down her cheek, Isabel wiped it away as another tear fell.

Sam sat looking at the young woman. It struck her as frightening that someone so young could build a connection with someone so deep that they became just as important to you as breathing. Sam knew how it felt; the silver haired general sat behind a desk deep below Cheyenne Mountain had become central to her life. The only difference was that she couldn't have him, she was his second in command and he was her commanding officer, it was prohibited on so many levels. It scared Sam to think that someone else could trigger such a reaction in her emotions. She held back tears as she handed Isabel a tissue. "I know how you feel, well almost. My brother knows that I work in Cheyenne Mountain but he has no idea what I do and how important it is. Since you're going to be briefed on the situation I'd better tell you the basics. Do you like science fiction shows?" Sam asked the girl. What a good way to start, a trivial question.

"Well, yeah. I love them; they broaden my imagination and understanding of the universe. What does this have to do with getting me to fly over 5000 miles and nearly make me sick?" Isabel asked. Sam had finally been able to see how much the trip had taken its toll. The girl had a slight green tint to her pale skin and she had bags under her eyes.

"Because what I do sound a little bit like one. I travel across the galaxy by using an alien device called 'the stargate'. It allows near instantaneous travel to other planets by creating a stable wormhole through the fabric of the universe. By going through the stargate, the US Air Force has been able to advance technology far enough in order to do things like beam someone out of a room." Sam had a slight smile on her face. This young woman had only been able to come because of her knowledge of Asgard beaming technology. "We have also gained many enemies during the process of exploring the galaxy and because of that we think the earth is facing its greatest threat form the Goa'uld."

"What am I doing here then? I only wrote a paper on wormhole physics, not how to kick some random bad guy's ass! This is a bit much for me to take in all at once while figuring out why I'm here!" Isabel as looking around the vehicle rapidly with a look of pure shock on her face. "Who are the Goa'uld?"

"The Goa'uld are a parasitic race of symbiotes that take human hosts and supress their ability to control their own bodies. They then pose as gods and control as many human occupied planets as possible. Queens or Mothers can change human physiology in order to create jaffa, warriors who carry larval goa'uld in order to survive." Sam was starting to shiver at her own words, even after six years it still sounded horrible. "We're here; you'd better stay with me and do exactly what I tell you."

Isabel stepped out of the vehicle and stayed as close to the colonel as she could. She walked through a concrete tunnel, it was very dull in there and it almost seemed to her as if they were placing her in jail. An officer stood up and asked her to place her signature onto a chart. She looked to the colonel for guidance and received a swift nod and a small smile. She was then told to place her hand under a scanner; again she looked to the colonel for guidance and received the same reaction. After a few other procedures and receiving a strange card with a magnetic strip, she was led to an elevator. It counted down twenty-seven floors finally stopped. Waiting outside of the elevator was a man wearing a blue shirt, blue cargo pants and big chunky black boots. He smiled at the colonel and proceeded to talk.

"So, Carter, productive trip?" he sounded very off hand for someone who was obviously older than everybody she had seen. "And I see that our new recruit made it in one piece. Introductions?" he was definitely in charge as on command, the colonel turned and replied.

"General, this is Isabel Hastings, I've already told you about her. Isabel, this is General Jack O'Neill, he's in charge here and he will be present when he briefs you on the situation." Sam gave her a reassuring smile and turned back to the General. "Sir, if you don't mind, I'd like to change out of these before the briefing."

"Of course Colonel, it's in another hour anyway. I'll make sure that our visitor is OK." The General spoke to Sam, he was talking a little too softly with Sam for someone who is in charge. "If you'd follow me." He spoke to Isabel as the colonel walked away; he led her along a corridor until he stopped outside of a grey door just like all of the others. "You need to go through this one, I'll join you in there after I inform my superiors that you have arrived. Grogan, make sure she doesn't hurt herself." She wasn't a child, why was he treating her like one? And why did he suddenly sound all stern to the man named 'Grogan'. He was acting a little strangely. "Major, I'd like to speak with you in my office."

The four of them parted ways, Isabel and Grogan walked into the room to see that another man with strange glasses was already sat down and reading a blue file. "Doctor Jackson." The man Isabel had entered the room with spoke. The man with the strange glasses looked up from his paper and seemed a little distracted. "This is Isabel; I believe the General told you about her." Grogan motioned to Isabel that she should sit across from the man with the glasses.

"Hi," he said to her "I'm Daniel. Was your trip OK?" he asked, obviously he had given up reading and decided to be at least courteous to her.

"It was OK; I'm not too keen on planes. They make me feel sick." She shivered at her memory of the flight, or maybe it was just the temperature of the room. "I don't mean to be rude, but do you know when Sam will be back. She told me to do exactly what she said but now I'm a little confused." She looked around the room hoping to spot her somewhere.

"Sam should get here soon. I was wondering, how old are you?" Daniel was obviously not going to let her change the subject. Was he always like this? It was a little annoying.

"I'm fourteen." She informed him. He stared at her for what seemed like a few minutes. "So, what do you do here? Sam told me about the stargate but I still don't quite understand it."

"Well, we travel across the galaxy in order to meet new cultures and find technology that could help us in the fight against the Goa'uld. We use the stargate for that, we enter six symbols that are sort of like an address and then we use a seventh symbol that represents the point of origin, by doing that the stargate can then create the wormhole and allow us through." It sounded a lot simpler from him. Well at least it would if he hadn't spoken at a billion miles an hour.

Sam walked in and took the seat next to Isabel and smiled. "Hey Daniel, you're here early." She had changed into a long sleeved black shirt, green cargo pants like the General's and a similar pair of chunky black boots. "Are you OK Isabel?"

"Yeah I'm fine; Daniel was explaining to me how you get to other planets." She informed the woman while she took off her jacket and placed it across her legs. "You were right; it does sound like a science fiction show." She received a low laugh from the opposite end of the table. "What did I say?"

"Sam, you told her that it was like a science fiction show? I thought you hated them." Daniel said, still laughing slightly. The room slowly filled with people, the only topic of conversation that she had picked out of several conversations was her. Didn't they have anything better to do?

The General walked into the room and made his way to a seat at the end of the table nearest to the door he had entered through. All of the conversation had ended and all of the people in the room had stood up, Sam motioned to her to stand up. As she did so she took the opportunity to straighten out her dress. "Take your seats." He said simply and everyone took their seats, this time she knew that his orders were law. "Most of you know why we're here." He looked toward Isabel briefly and continued to speak. "Some of you don't so I'm going to have Carter explain it in detail." With that Sam stood up and nodded at the General. He spun his chair around to look at a slowly descending screen. As the lights went down an image of something that looked very much like a pyramid appeared on the screen.

"Now, Ba'al's new mother ship is on its way here and it will arrive cloaked so we have no idea where it will be and what course it will be taking. This is where our visitor comes in. A little while ago I visited her school in England as part of a research project to evaluate the young minds of the twenty first century. I put forward to some a tactical problem and others a more scientific problem. Our visitor answered the more scientific problem with a simple answer but a hard way to carry it out. She said that you could use UV and infra-red filters to detect the hear energy being emitted from the engines and the cloaking device. The reason she is here is because of what she had found out about one of the biggest secrets kept by the stargate programme. She found out about our beaming technology." After Sam had said that a few of the people looked toward Isabel. She gave them a nervous smile and returned her attention to the Colonel's presentation. The Colonel continued her presentation, losing the attention of many of the people in the room. When it was all over it seemed to Isabel that it was only her and Daniel who were still paying attention, well so was the big guy with the gold tattoo on his forehead.

"Thanks Colonel." The General exclaimed while Sam took her seat. The screen retracted and the lights were turned back on, much to Isabel's dismay, the sudden introduction of the 'harmless' radiation seared her eyes. "Now we have seventeen days to figure out how to track it and how to stop it. Colonel Carter and Isabel, our visitor, will be leading the operation; hopefully they will be able to fix this." With a movement of his hand, the General removed half of the room only leaving behind her, Sam and Daniel.

"Isabel, you'd better come with me." The General told her, she looked at Sam hesitantly to receive a reassuring smile. Taking that with her, Isabel followed the General into his office, gripping her blazer anxiously. "Could you close the door behind you." He said that more like an order than a question. That didn't reassure Isabel but she closed the door like she was asked and stood in front of the General's desk. "Take a seat." Obeying his orders Isabel took her seat and looked across to the General. "Now, I trust you. However my superiors don't. They believe that signing the non-disclosure agreement isn't enough. They want you to swear to us that you won't reveal the stargate programme, it's more of a 'the fate of the world hangs in the balance' situation not you'll get sent to the principal." He looked a little disgusted in the idea.

"Of course I won't tell anyone! It's not like anybody would believe me, this whole thing sounds like the plot to a science fiction movie." Isabel hastily spoke. She felt a little hurt that they didn't trust her but appreciated the fact that they needed to keep this a secret. "I don't mean to offend you but is that the only reason I'm here, because I found about the beaming technology?"

She sounded a little hurt but the General didn't want a lie to hurt her. "No, we brought you here to help track the ship and to help destroy it, so no. We didn't bring you here just so we could keep you quiet. You need to go with Colonel Carter now." He indicated the woman leaning against the large table in the adjoining room. "She will show you where the labs are _after_ you have been checked out in the infirmary. Now, off you go. We kind of need you working on this as quickly as possible." He flashed her a grin that reassured her. Isabel grinned back at him and left the room, placing her jacket back on.

She was escorted to the infirmary to have a short haired doctor walk over to her and Sam. "Is this our visitor?" she said warmly. "Come and sit down over here." The doctor patted on the nearby bed and then waked over to a table to retrieve a chart of some kind. "Can you open wide so I can see you're the back of your throat?" the doctor was much nicer than the General. Isabel obediently opened her mouth and the doctor placed her hands on either side of her face just under her jaw bone. "You don't appear to be Tok'ra. Can you show me the back of your neck?" Obediently Isabel removed her hair from around her back and allowed the doctor to see the smooth skin on the back of her neck. "And not Goa'uld." That made Isabel shiver more than ever.

The doctor carried out a few more tests and took a sample of blood. Unfortunately, Isabel had passed out part way during the process and she lay stationary on the bed for the next hour. The doctor came back just as she regained consciousness. After being reassured that she was in perfect health, the doctor ordered her to stay lying down for a little while in order to fully regain consciousness. As she sat up, Isabel saw a needle sat on the table at her bedside and nearly passed out again. "You don't like needles do you?" Sam asked her, she looked sincerely sorry that she had to go through what the General used to back when he was leader of SG1.

"No, I don't, they make my skin crawl. Not because they're sharp but they remind me of blood, just the thought of it and I get queasy." Isabel shuddered at the revelation. She hoped that she wouldn't have to go through that again. The doctor walked back over to her and let her leave the infirmary. "Where are the labs? Are they on this level?"

"No, they're a little further away than that. We have to take the elevator." Sam smiled at her, for some reason it made Isabel feel a little better about the situation when people smiled.

"I think the General likes you." Isabel revealed when they entered the elevator. Luckily there was nobody else there to hear what she had to say. "He doesn't sound as harsh when he talks to you; he spoke to that soldier named Grogan really badly. He must like you." Isabel was very insistent about what she had seen. She wasn't going to mention the fact that she could have sworn the General said that he wished that the 'regs' would go kill themselves so he could tell the Colonel that he loved her.

"Unfortunately, he likes lots of people so you just need to get to know him better." Sam said as humorously as possible. _'If only!'_

"What did you just say?" Isabel asked. Was she going crazy?

"I said that unfortunately, he…" Sam started when Isabel interrupted her.

"What did you say after that?" Isabel asked. She got a strange look from Sam, much to her dislike. "I thought you said 'if only'." Sam looked a little worried, Isabel couldn't hear her thoughts! Could she?

"No I didn't, you must have imagined it." Sam replaced the look of shock with a sympathising grin. "Don't worry, you're probably just feeling the effects of your little meeting with the needle, the General used to feel like that all of the time. That was before he took command." So the General hadn't always been the mean man behind the desk.

"Hang on, I felt like this before I went to the infirmary. I thought I had heard the General talking about something called 'regs' and how they should go kill themselves." she spoke as they made their way to the labs. "He said that he would then be able to tell you that…" she stopped talking when the halls filled with people. They walked through a door that said 'Colonel Carter' on it and she felt awed to see several laptops and various pieces of technology dotted around a work bench. "I was going to say, he said that he would then be able to tell you that he loved you." She said with a voice close to a whisper. "I was going to ask him about it but his mouth wasn't moving when I heard it. It was sort of like when you said if only." She looked at the blushing Colonel standing on the other side of the table.

"You should probably forget about that. It would be really bad if someone assumed something that wasn't real. So, how do you think we can find that mothership?"


	4. Don't Even Think About It

**Chapter 4: Don't Even Think About It**

Isabel sat at the computer screen typing away; she was starting to come to the last of her ideas. Pages and pages of useless notes and in half an hour she and Sam were supposed to give a report to the General. Every twenty-four hours. Sure it was their first check in but she felt like she could be doing a lot better than she was. Then it hit her, she only needed to see the heat. "What else is here, other than the stargate?" She asked. Sam seemed a little shocked by her sudden outburst.

"Well, we're stationed under NORAD; they help us track un-cloaked objects in the solar system, why? They can't track a cloaked mother ship." Sam felt a little stupid after asking that last question, as soon as she saw the grin that Isabel had plastered on her face, Sam was onto her.

"You were thinking that the solution was right in front of you but you just couldn't see it." Isabel exclaimed as she reached for a note pad and pen, she frantically drew a few diagrams and shoved them underneath the Colonel's nose. "Don't ask how I knew what you were thinking. It gets a little hard to explain." She informed the colonel as Sam looked over the information she had been provided with.

"We need to show this to the General. It's not much but it's a start." The colonel handed Isabel back her pen and paper. "I'll let you do the talking, it is your idea." Sam smiled as they left the lab. "I have to confess, I wasn't completely focussed. I was, well, I was…" Sam was starting to struggle with getting the words out.

"You don't have to explain, I know. I was the one who had to listen to it, on top of all the mumbling and humming. Yes, you do hum when you're happy" Isabel informed Sam in a very off hand manner. "Please don't tell the General about this. He'll send me to the infirmary and I'll have to see another needle." Isabel sounded very desperate.

"Don't worry, I won't tell him about the mind reading if you don't tell him about what I was thinking. That would be a bit awkward." Sam back mailed.

"Just a little bit… control your thoughts though, I don't want a re-run of what of what you were thinking when he told you to go to bed!" Isabel sounded very stern, and Sam started to laugh awkwardly. The moment was getting a little tense. "Well, are you coming with me to see the General?" Isabel asked Sam when she noticed that she had stopped walking.

Turning around she saw that Sam was clutching her stomach. "No! One, you can't send me to the General alone and two, you can't be serious! It's forbidden, how can that even be possible? Mind reader, remember!" Isabel walked over to Sam and examined her closely. "Maybe you can leave me, you look like you're about to be sick. I'll take you to see the doctor; I've still got fifteen minutes before I have to see the General." She suggested.

"No, you need to be there as soon as you can. I'll see Janet on my own." Sam started walking to the elevator again. When they entered, she first pressed the button to the General's floor. When they arrived on level twenty-seven, a strange looking man was clutching his wrist. ' _Poor Siler._ ' Sam thought. "Isabel, you'd better go you're cutting it close."

Isabel nodded to Sam and made her way to the General's office, the door was open but he was on the phone. Jack looked up to see that Isabel was still wearing the same clothes but had her hair tied up. She and Sam must have pulled an all-nighter to get the situation figured out. He motioned to her to take a seat and she obeyed it hastily. He ended his call and saw the empty chair. _'Where's Carter?'_ he asked himself a little worriedly. _'Crap! She better be alright.'_

"She was having bad stomach pains so she went to see the doctor. She'll be fine." Isabel relieved him.

"How did you know what I was thinking?" Jack questioned of her. "Actually, I don't want to know. What have you got?" Jack asked of the fourteen year old. He accepted the note pad but looked a little confused by all of the diagrams.

"When Colonel Carter said that the answer was right in front of her and that she just needed to see it, it gave me an idea. There are lots of ways that we can see and measure different wavelengths of energy." Isabel explained. The General still looked confused so she continued. "Do you know how infra-red sensors work?"

"Yeah, sort of. Aren't they the ones that allow you to detect heat?"

"They're the ones. Now a mother ship would require massive amounts of energy to get here right, not to mention all of the extra energy to power shields and a cloaking device." Isabel hoped that the General understood all of this. "The ship's power source would give off massive amounts of heat. The cloak and shield would be blocking out most of that but there will still be some coming from the shield itself. We use an infra-red sensor to pick up that heat and we've found them." Isabel leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. She was glad that the General was starting to understand.

"Let's move onto the matter of you knowing what I was thinking." The general leaned onto his desk and looked directly at her.

"Lucky guess?" Isabel said uneasily, anybody would be able to tell that she was lying. "I take offense to that statement!" she exclaimed, looking a little shocked. "I am not crazy!" she immediately knew that it was a mistake to respond to his statement.

"Don't bother saying it; I'll go down to the infirmary." She said throwing her hands up in a mocking surrender. "And yes, I'll tell Sam that you'll visit her once you've finished all of your paper work. Can I have mine?" The General handed Isabel her note pad as she turned to leave. "I can hear your thoughts." She said as she neared the door.

"That too, you have some very colourful language!" She exclaimed as she turned to him in the doorway. The General had a large smirk on his face, shaking his head with a mild laugh. "Don't even think about it!" he heard her voice ring through the halls.


	5. Even You Can't Deny It

**Chapter 5: Even You Can't Deny It**

"Sam, stop worrying. You're fine and what you're experiencing is a natural process. Stop freaking out." Janet reprimanded her best friend. Never in her life had Sam looked so worried and Janet didn't know what to do. "Sam, you have to tell me exactly what's bothering you otherwise I can't help."

"Janet, she knew what I was thinking, it was almost like she was me! She knows how I feel about the General and she thinks that he feels the same way. As much as I want to believe that she's right something tells me that it's just wishful thinking." Sam's eyes were tearing up, she tried to calm down but it didn't stop teas from streaming freely from her eyes and falling onto herself and onto Janet, who had pulled her into a hug.

"Don't bother Doctor Frasier, I'm here. The General let his thoughts run wild and I might have picked up on them. It was when I got a little insulted that he figured it out. He let me explain my idea though before he thought about shipping me here." Isabel was standing in the doorway looking at Sam and the Doctor.

"Will you come with me and remove anything metal that might interfere with the scanner." The doctor informed Isabel as she headed over to the MRI. "How many words did the General fit into the conversation?"

"Well… 43. Sam, the General said he would come to see you in a little bit. Well, he thought it and I said that I'd tell you." Isabel flashed Sam a smile as she placed her necklace and bracelet onto a table inside of the room. She lay down and closed her eyes. She almost started crying when she heard all of the thoughts of the nurses. She focussed her mind, trying to block out the noise but it was too much for her to handle when she was this tired. She let all of the voices wash over her for the next two hours as she lay completely still.

"We're done, hopefully we can find out what did this to you and how it is making you read people's minds." Janet informed her. "Maybe we can fix it."

"It's not a disease that you can cure me from, I've always been able to hear people's thoughts and it's not by choice. Their voices just overwhelm my mind, that's why when Sam first met me I was sat by a few people, the further away they are, the quieter their thoughts. There are some people whose thoughts I can hear wherever." Isabel was hurt and she had never opened up to anyone like that before.

"Whose thoughts fill your mind like that?" Janet's mind filled with ideas and theories.

"I've never heard anyone with louder thoughts than you. But in answer to your question, I'm talking about these two people." She showed Janet the same picture Sam had seen, "Leila and Emily, right now they're thinking about how to surprise me and how we can celebrate my birthday. They will be really hurt when I'm not there but I guess I can try to apologise, if I get home." Isabel was sure that they were going to keep her there until they learnt more about her talent, if you could call it that.

"Why don't you sleep, you've been up for thirty-six hours, you need rest. I don't want you to get up until you've had at least three hours of sleep. Trust me when I say that I'll know if you get up."

"Wait, how's Sam? She looked like she could pass out from lack of nutrition a few hours ago. And I mean it." Isabel wanted to be sure that Sam was right about the Colonel's assumption.

"People in her condition are prone to these spells of sudden sickness. But of course you aren't aware of her condition. Or, maybe you're not one hundred per cent sure of it. Colonel Carter is nearly four months pregnant. You probably should have gotten the information out of her but you know how stubborn she is." Janet escorted Isabel to a bed and informed her that she needed to sleep there until the results of her test came back.

' _This is worse than you had anticipated. You promised me Osiris, you promised that they didn't know how to detect my ship and yet, they are attempting to. You'd better hope that they do not succeed or it will be your life on the line.' A South African voice sounded from her mouth, somehow it was slightly metallic. She saw flashes of hieroglyphs and her hand lifting; causing the woman stood in front of her to fall to the ground and writhed in pain. She heard her own voice shrill with laughter, taking pleasure in what she was doing. 'Who is the one who showed them the secrets of the gods?'_

' _I believe her name is Isabel and she has the ability to hear the thoughts of others, she would be an able host if she was captured my lord Ba'al.' The woman panted. She sounded English but had the same metallic ring to it. She was looking at her with a mischievous smile on her face._

Isabel was writhing in her bed, screaming in an intense pain, her eyes screwed shut. There was no way out, she was lost in the cavern of someone's mind. The more she was drawn in, the more terrible the images. She then sat up, uncontrollably sweating, her eyes were scanning the room; holding back tears. Doctor Frasier and Sam had tried to hold her down; behind them she saw Daniel and the general staring at her in both shock and worry. "He knows what we're doing, he knows who I am and he won't stop until he gets me!" Isabel was shaking with fear; her words baffled the four people looking at her.

"Who knows? Isabel? Who knows?" Sam asked her, she looked Isabel directly in the eye. _'If that person is who I think they are, we will definitely have a hard time trying to keep this a secret.'_ There was no hiding what she was thinking.

"Ba'al. It was Ba'al. He was talking to this woman he called Osiris and he, we, were torturing the information out of her. At first he came here out of anger but now he's coming here to take me." Isabel was still shaking and she was talking too quickly for anyone to understand. "He's coming to take me as his host, I was inside his mind, he knows what I can do and he thinks that by taking me as a host that he can stop us from finishing the research."

"Her story is too wild to make it up; even you can't deny that, sir." Sam said to the General, flashing him her most humorous smile.


	6. Far From The Truth

**Chapter 6: Far From The Truth**

"We need to get her off base as soon as possible; if Ba'al is now looking for her then we can guarantee that he will follow her. I, Sg1 and Isabel, escorted by SG2, will go gate jumping and then we will go to an uninhabited planet; we link a ZPM to the DHD and take her to Atlantis. Sg2 will return with the ZPM and the Prometheus will then take it to Atlantis and stay in orbit for the protection of the city for a few days before it returns. However, if that slimy son of a bitch follows the Prometheus then we will blow him out of the sky." The General explained in the briefing room, all of SG2 were staring at him in disarray, they could not believe that the General was suggesting that they make a run for it. "We've sent word to the Tok'ra and they're going to have one of their operatives leak the information, we leave in twenty-four hours." After SG2 had left the room the General turned to Isabel and Sam. "Carter, I'm going to need you to take Isabel to the surface with the weapons she will need to learn how to fire."

"Yes sir, Isabel, you'd better come with me." Sam replied. The two of them left the room and headed for the armoury one floor down. "When Ba'al gets to the planet he will need to send jaffa to the surface in order to get you out, alive. You're going to need to use a P90 and a zat."

About twenty minutes of training later, Isabel knew how to use the weapons and needed to see Janet, again. "You're good at finding a reason to see me. You'll be fine, it's only a graze and the bullet didn't infect it. You'll be fine in about three weeks and you'll be on Atlantis by the time you need to replace the stitches." Janet placed the needle and thread into a bed pan and beckoned to put it in the sharps bin. "You are one unlucky person, I have never seen anybody who can fire a gun at a target thirty meters away and injure themselves with the same bullet they fired."

"Yeah, that's me, unlucky. I'm being stalked by a Goa'uld, I've never had a quiet moment in my life and… who's that guy? He has a tattoo on his forehead like that big guy, Teal'c. Are there two Jaffa on base?" Isabel asked. She reached out her mind to his and was left wide eyed. "Sam, he's one of Osiris' Jaffa, that's the one who informed them about me!" Isabel jumped up as soon as soon as Janet had finished with the bandaging. "I need something that will make him unconscious, quickly!" Janet handed Isabel a syringe full of a silvery liquid. Isabel made sure that the enemy Jaffa could not see her approach, ducking behind the empty beds and cabinets; she rounded the last corner and injected the Jaffa causing him to collapse. One of the SFs saw what was going on and pointed a gun at the back of her head. "Listen, he is one of Osiris' Jaffa and he is here as a spy, let me take off his hat and show you the marking on his forehead." She reached towards the Jaffa, kneeling next to him, when the SF cocked his gun.

"Ma'am, I'm going to alert the General of your actions. I saw you enter the infirmary with Colonel Carter, have you done the same thing to her and the medical staff? Answer me!" The SF spat. If he accused her of doing something like that again then she was going to lose it.

"If you want, I can take you to her." Isabel proposed as she stood up. "She is just round the corner, let me take show you." Isabel walked, very slowly, into the infirmary with her hands, the SF's gun still trained on her head. "See, she's fine."

"I'll be the judge of that, keep walking!" The SF forced her across the room towards Colonel Carter and Doctor Frasier. "Colonel, this civilian has been attacking base personnel. What should I do with her?"

Sam spun around to see that the SF was holding a gun to Isabel's head. "Don't worry Airman, she was pursuing an intruder. What's your name?" Sam's view of his name tag was being blocked by a terrorised Isabel.

"Lieutenant Elliot, ma'am." He replied simply, Sam's eyes hardened on the 'lieutenant'. "Is there a problem, ma'am?"

"Yes, there is a problem. Lieutenant Elliot died about three years ago as a host to the Tok'ra, Lantash. I saw him as he was sent to his death. Place your weapon on the ground now. That's an order." Sam barked at the man. "Isabel go get the man you took out, I'll take care of this one!" As the 'SF' placed his weapon on the ground, Isabel ran around the corner and dragged the Jaffa into the infirmary. "Who are you?" Sam insisted.

"I am Rak'nal, first prime of Osiris. The other man is Forash, my second in command." He supplied the woman with a look of distaste. "We use a drug stolen from the free Jaffa rebellion that allows us to go without symbiotes. We have our symbiotes waiting for us on Ba'al's mother ship. He will destroy you and then Osiris will kill him, taking over his fleet." The Jaffa almost seemed to praise the fact that a false god would soon rule over all. It disgusted Isabel and Sam to think that he would still get out of the SGC alive.

"Sam, he's got an explosive in his boot, he was going to activate it when the General questioned him." Isabel reached down and showed Sam a small ball with five symbols around what seemed like a button used to activate it. "He doesn't have any other weapons that I know about. It was him that shot me, hoping that we'd find out about the decoy so I could become host to Osiris instead of Ba'al. They both believe that I am the key to conquering the galaxy."

"I'll inform the General and have them put in isolation. We need to get off base within the next hour and wait for Ba'al to get there before we move to the next planet." Sam was very serious about what she was saying.

Isabel made her way to her quarters after having a second set of stitches. She threw on her dark grey three quarter top, a pair of black skinny jeans and a pair of khaki all-star high tops. If she was going to run around the galaxy then she was going to do it in something comfortable. She picked up her black blazer and pulled it over her back. Looking at her other jacket, she reached into her pocket and retrieved the photo she held close to her heart. She placed it into the side of her left shoe, hoping the no-one would notice.

Sam knocked on the door, starting Isabel; she must have been controlling her thoughts for once. "We need to get down to level twenty-eight and get geared up. You'll be taking a P90 and a zat. Are you going to change into BDUs?" Sam raced through her little speech almost as if it had been rehearsed.

"No, you won't have any that'll fit me, and I've grown rather fond of this get up." Isabel sounded very serious; she had no idea why Sam was staring at her, until she stopped blocking out the voices. "Yes I use the phrase 'get up'. Get over it!"

They walked into the gate room to find that Teal'c was missing. He ran into the gate room panting, everyone stood around him expecting answers. "I was apprehended by a follower of Osiris, I believe that the base has been compromised." Teal'c doesn't say much does he? Isabel let it go as he was puzzling over many things in his mind. "We must depart now, O'Neill." As if on cue, the stargate threw out a torrent of energy out of its centre before retracting into a rippling pool.

"Alright people, let's move out." The General called, he seemed to be struggling up the ramp, holding a large black case in one hand and a P90 in the other.

"It's got your ticket to safety inside. Yeah, I knew what you were thinking for once!" Sam smiled at her as she led Isabel up the ramp to the event horizon. "It's better when you experience it. One second you're staring at the puddle of water with grey walls around it and the next thing you know you're looking at a whole new world, it's pretty amazing. We'd better hurry; I can hear someone running through the corridor."

"It's one of the Jaffa we apprehended, Rak'nal. I think. He's very good at manipulating his thoughts." Isabel remarked but received a stern look from Sam. "Right, we need to go." Sam and Isabel stepped through the event horizon as it took them to their first leg of their grand-prix of the universe.


	7. Gate To Gate

**Chapter 7: Gate To Gate**

Isabel had been sat, holding tightly onto the photograph since they'd built the fire. She had no idea what she was going to happen next, being captured wasn't high on her list and becoming a host wasn't a priority. She had spoken to a young, eighteen year old Lieutenant Ryan Langer. Two years in the air force and then he was shipped off to the SGC. The recently turned fifteen year old was enjoying his company, the small talk and the comforting smile he had flashed at her. She wished he was going with them to Atlantis, she knew that someone had to get the ZPM back to Earth and she knew the threat that he had to fight off, but she felt comfortable around him. "I wish you were coming with us." She told him simply. She looked up at him as he grabbed her hand.

"I won't be going to Atlantis through the stargate, no. But I will be going in the Prometheus. I volunteered to escort the ZPM to Atlantis so I'll be there eventually." His chocolate brown eyes reassured her that she was going to be fine. "I heard you turned fifteen about an hour ago." He remarked in an off-hand manner.

"Yeah. What a great way to spend my birthday. Waiting for Ba'al to show up." Isabel laughed, it was the first time she felt comfortable around a guy, especially one in the military. "Thanks Ryan."

"What are you thanking me for?" Ryan asked genuinely puzzled, maybe he didn't know she could hear his thoughts.

"A few things. Treating me like a normal person, reassuring me about the little adventure we're on, and the compliment." She smiled at him devilishly. "I can hear your thoughts." She laughed at the shocked expression as a blush crept up his neck.

"Well that's different. Do you mind if I ask you a question?" he managed to say. "What number am I thinking between one and one billion?" How immature.

"Well, if you'd stop thinking of different numbers it would be a lot easier." Ryan was in complete disarray. "Remarkable? You think it's a good thing. Yeah it is sometimes useful but it's more of a curse." A tear rolled down her cheek. "When my grandmother died she was thinking of all the things she could have done differently. How she could have spent more time with us and all the things she should have said. I wouldn't call it a good thing." Isabel rested her head on the lieutenant's shoulder as his arm went around her shoulders as she cried.

Sam and Jack looked at the two young people, shaking their heads in amusement. "They like each other. They also remind me of us, you comforted me when my dad died and I bet that we looked like that." Sam remarked, remembering the scene.

"I don't see it." Jack commented mockingly. He knew that they looked a lot like them and was messing with Sam.

"I have to disagree, if Isabel had blonde hair the two of them could be younger versions of us. With one subtle difference. They're allowed to like each other." Sam had a small frown on her face. _'Yeah they're allowed each other, I fell for my CO, and she just fell for another guy.'_

"You know, it might not be that way between us forever. I've been offered General Hammond's job, I'm just weighing up the good and bad sides. I can both stay at the SGC and see you guys every day or I can go to DC and ask you out." Jack looked at Sam to see a look of pure shock on her face.

"What are the bad points? If you stay you can't ask me out and if you go you won't see me all the time?" Sam asked. She was shocked to see him nod. "How long have you wanted to ask me out?" She slipped at him.

"Oh I don't know exactly how long but will it help if I say, since you first walked into the briefing room and challenged me to an arm wrestle."

"Really, seven years ten months and thirteen days. That's a long time but I do have to admit, same here." Sam smiled into his chocolate brown eyes; they now had a glint in them of mischief.

Early that morning Lieutenant Langer and Daniel were sent out to secure the perimeter so Teal'c could practise Kel'no'reem for a few hours. Jack made his way to Sam's side of the tent and shook her awake. "Old habits never die huh Carter? Don't freak out you were having a nightmare, a pretty bad one by the sound of it. You OK?"

"Yeah, I am now. Jolinar's first host was formerly a host to the Goa'uld Katesh. She'd tortured her family and some of the people from her village while a host. I was just remembering that." Sam was shaking so Jack held onto her and kissed her head. After Sam had drifted off again, he went to relieve Ryan and Daniel now that Teal'c had finished his Kel'no'reem.

Daylight started to appear as they finished their watch. When they'd returned they found that most of the camp was awake other than a few exceptions. Langer informed the General that Isabel had a restless night and that she was probably going to be asleep for another hour. He was a little worried that she wouldn't have the energy to go through with the next few trips to the planets.

Isabel then walked out of the tent on the farther side of the camp fully dressed with a zat strapped to her thigh. "Go keep her company Lieutenant. I trust you won't force me to make that an order." Jack smiled at the lieutenant as they made their way to the fire pit and took their seats. He was glad to see that the two youngest members of the mission were already deep in conversation. "How much do you bet that they will kiss before we leave for Atlantis?" He asked Daniel who was sat looking at the two young people.

"Fifty dollars." Daniel stated. "I am confident that they will get together unlike a certain General and blonde Colonel." Daniel slyly threw out there.

"We need to take down the camp within the next hour. If the Tok'ra stuck to their side of the plan then Ba'al will find out in twenty minutes. Let's move it." The General informed the camp and they went to work. They also laid down pine leaves so that is Ba'al sent gliders it would look like they were still camped in the area. They were all finished when they made their way to the clearing around the gate, waiting in the trees for his arrival. As the ground troops closed in they dialled the gate to the land of the light and repeated their experience there. Once they were on their abandoned planet they set up the ZPM and prepared for Ba'al to find them.

"Lieutenant, I have received a message that I am needed back on base to give a report on the mission before we leave with the ZPM. I need you to go with SG1 so that I can go back to the SGC. Is that alright with you lieutenant?" the General asked him. Ryan was in complete shock but managed to nod as the general walked over to the DHD.

Isabel was sat with Sam as they hooked up the ZPM; she was attempting to modulate the energy output of the ZPM through the DHD. "Isabel can I talk to you for a second?" the general asked her. They walked a short distance from the DHD so that they could talk privately. "I'm going to leave for the SGC with SG2 so I've asked that Lieutenant Langer take my place, we want to keep your security detail at the same number of people, I just thought you should know since it is your life we're dealing with." The general left her standing there in shock and went over to speak to Daniel.

"Isabel, the DHD is overloading I need you over here quickly!" Sam shouted. Isabel was brought back to reality and went over to help her. They managed to stabilise the DHD's power core and they were ready to take her to Atlantis. They dialled the gate and waited for the gate to get a lock. Daniel, Teal'c, Sam, Isabel and Ryan waited for Atlantis to allow them through. Isabel and Ryan were holding hands as they stepped through the event horizon of the gate, finally being able to take a step back and let the SGC take care of Ba'al. Once she stepped through the gate to Atlantis she was met with several P90s aimed at her. "Stand down! She's the girl we're trying to protect!" Sam screamed as Colonel John Shepard and Dr Elizabeth Weir ran down the steps.


	8. How Much More Can There Be

**Chapter 8: How Much More Can There Be**

Isabel was sat in the briefing room; they had been there for twenty minutes while they decided what they were going to do about the risk of Ba'al finding Atlantis. Dr Weir and Colonel Shepard walked into the briefing room and took their seats. "We assessed the situation while Rodney pleaded that two certain scientists be allowed to stay and that the rest of you leave. He seems to think that you can help him with reverse engineering a wraith dart." Colonel Shepard informed them, all of the eyes in the room rolled simultaneously. "We however don't mind if you all stay as long as the Prometheus reaches us before Ba'al does. We do want Isabel to go down to the infirmary; her injury seems a lot worse than we were forewarned about." He nodded to Isabel and then looked back at the rest of the room.

"Colonel Carter, we'd like for you to go and help Dr McKay, and to shut him up. We'd then like for Isabel to join you both so we can at least work through it quickly. The sooner we finish, the sooner we'll have an edge over the wraith." Dr Weir then cut in.

"Hang on; I left one galaxy with a threat to come to a different galaxy with an equally as dangerous threat. Won't the wraith come after me too?" Isabel askes, she was a little confused. "Ba'al wanted my gift; Osiris wanted it too, what about the wraith if they find out?"

"Don't worry; the only people that know are the people in this room." Colonel Shepard informed her. Isabel still looked a bit shaky about the situation but accepted it, nodded and leaned back in her chair. Colonel Shepard noticed that the young lieutenant next to her had grabbed her hand and was holding it tightly. "Is there anything else we need to cover or can we get moving with our current plan?"

"No, I think that's everything. You'd better get going colonel before Rodney tries to hold back on the project." Doctor Weir informed the people in the room. Isabel was a little reluctant to move but Dr Weir walked over to her and sat down. "Don't worry; we have a great doctor here form the UK and the rest of the base personnel were chosen from the best in twelve different countries. You will be perfectly safe as long as you stay in Atlantis."

"Ok, I'd better get to the infirmary then." She said. Isabel was escorted by Colonel Shepard to the infirmary where she heard a man giving orders in the distance. "Is the doctor here Scottish?" Isabel asked as they walked in.

"Aye, I am. If you'd like to sit down there then I can fix that stitching." A cheery man informed her as he guided her to what appeared to be a hospital bed. As the doctor removed the bandaging around her wrist his brow furrowed and he removed the stitching carefully. "It seems that you have some sort of infection around the wound." The doctor wiped the wound down, causing Isabel to wince, and then replaced the stitching and bandaging. "You should be fine as long as you take one of these anti-biotics every day for the next two weeks. If the infection gets worse or spreads, come back to see me." The doctor gave her a white pot and smiled at her.

Ryan helped Isabel out of the hospital bed and helped her find the control room, they walked through one of the doors when it opened up and saw a balcony area. Looking over the city and its looming towers they saw the extent of what had been achieved. The city was huge and it rested on the surface of the water as if it was a leaf. "How is that possible?" Isabel asked astonished. "Yeah, it is beautiful, that's one thing that you can't deny."

"Not as beautiful as you." Ryan whispered to her. Isabel turned her head to face him and placed a soft kiss on his lips. He lips lingered for no longer than a few seconds but it felt as if it could go on forever. Ryan wrapped his arm around her waist and rested his head on top of hers.

Neither of them had realised that Daniel and Sam had seen the two of them. "Jack's going to be really happy that he won the bet." Daniel said a little peeved. He could not bear losing another bet to Jack, especially since the last one had been where Daniel would next descend.

"We'd better go and interrupt them, McKay really needs her help." Sam walked over to the young duo and placed a hand on Isabel's shoulder. Automatically Isabel nodded to Sam and then returned her focus to Ryan.

"Ryan, I need to go help Dr McKay, apparently he needs my help." She told him simply and walked away leaving the young man and Daniel on the balcony to talk things over. "Fifty bucks? Really? I wouldn't have even put that much on us. Well, the General will be happy. So, why do you keep thinking about DC? I mean, you aren't moving there are you? The General! You can't be serious. No way! He's gonna go, he knows what it would mean for the two of you."

"You'd better not talk to him about it when he gets here. You've got three weeks before he comes and kicks your ass for that." Sam laughed as they made their way to a lab in one of the far areas of the city. "McKay, here is the person you've been asking for. Isabel this is Rodney McKay, Rodney this is Isabel Hastings. By the way you should probably remember that her wormhole theory paper makes yours look like it was written in crayon, by a two year old."

"Well, Isabel. Do you know anything about propulsion systems?" Rodney asked her, he sounded a little too confident in her but didn't even let her talk. "Right over here are some of the more important parts from this wraith dart. Do you think that you'd be able to make sense of any of them?"

Isabel looked over the table and spotted something that looked like it could be an engine. "Maybe that one." She indicated the engine-like contraption and was given by Rodney a few sheets of paper. "This is all you know about it. It's a good job you've got one that seems undamaged. I'll get to work." Isabel moved over to a make shift desk, she hooked up the device to the laptop and ran a few tests for detecting different substances and forms of radiation and power. That was interesting; the device was composed mostly of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. She took a pair of forceps and a knife, she cut off a small piece of a cord that fed into the device and placed it onto a petri dish, it had obviously been severed and was a pipeline of some kind. She made her way over to a microscope and placed it under the lens. "Dr McKay, I've got something you should see."

"What is it? Is it important?" Rodney questioned. He rushed over to the microscope and stared at the girl. "Why do you need that?"

"Well, when I discovered that the device was composed of four of the most common elements in just about everything organic, I brought it over here. Look into here and tell me what you see." Isabel indicated the microscope.

"I don't have to be any doctor to figure out what that is. Sam, the ship is organic; it's composed of a series of complex cells. Isabel you need to get this up to Carson. Dr Beckett. Hurry, this could be the most important thing we've ever learnt about the wraith." Rodney called out. He was a bit too pushy when he wanted to be. Isabel retrieved several more specimens, sealed them and placed them into a small box before she made her way up out of the door. "She is one instinctive scientist."

"Rodney, that's what makes her smarter than you." Sam commented before she returned to dismantling the wraith dart.

After wandering the halls for what seemed like an hour, Isabel spotted Colonel Shepard wandering around the halls. "Colonel." She called after him, his mind filled with questions when he saw that a fifteen year old was running towards him. "I've got some of the cells from the wraith ship for Dr Beckett but I have no idea which way the infirmary is." She explained. The colonel suddenly understood and replied.

"You'd better come with me. I was sent by one of the medical staff to come and get you back to the infirmary. Dr Beckett seemed a little concerned about your wrist." The colonel informed her. They walked for another five minutes before they reached the infirmary. "Dr, I've got a present for you."

Dr Beckett appeared around the corner and sighed with relief. "What's that you're carrying?" He asked her when he saw the box in her hands.

"These are cells from a wraith dart. I was hoping that I could figure out more here than I could down in Dr McKay's lab. What did you need to see me about?" Isabel was a little confused by his sudden restarting of a train of thought that was louder than Dr Frasier's. "Do all doctors have loud thoughts?" she asked Colonel Shepard as they followed Dr Beckett to a computer.

"I took a look at your medical record and realised, the anti-biotics that I prescribed could kill you after only one dose. There are certain proteins in your blood that occur as a bi-product of your allergies. The anti-biotic would feed off of it and multiply in your system exponentially. You would die of an over dose in two days. Please tell me that you haven't taken one?" He pleaded to her.

"Did you understand any of that?" The colonel inquired of her.

"Yes I did understand what he said and no I haven't taken any yet. They're down in the lab; I was going to wait till I had to take some of my other medication before I had one." Isabel confirmed for both of the men. "I was wondering, have you ever seen anything like a wraith ship before you came to Atlantis? I think that it's an organism that grows and creates an electrical bond between each of the cells."

"No. I haven't but we should probably find out how it grows and what causes the electrical bonds before we do anything else." Dr Beckett informed her as they sat down and started to work on the pieces of wraith ship.


	9. I Guess We Are

**Chapter 9: I Guess We Are**

Isabel and Ryan were on sat on a pier right on the outer edge of the city, looking over the deep blue water. They had been talking about lots of things but Ryan was a little hesitant of asking her about their relationship, Isabel knew that he wanted to but let him build up the courage. Hey had been sat hand in hand, enjoying each other's company. They had been thinking things over when Ryan finally turned to face her. "Isabel, I was just wondering, what would you say if I asked you out? I feel like I've gotten to know you really well over the past three weeks but I still don't how you'd react."

"Well, first I'd lean closer to you," She then leaned closer to him placing her forehead on his. "Wrap my arms around your neck…" Isabel placed her hands on the back of his neck and then whispered to him. "And kiss you." Isabel gently pressed her lips to his and let it linger. She broke off the kiss and stared into his eyes. "You can take that as a yes." Ryan placed his hands on her hips and pulled her into another kiss. This kiss was more passionate than the other but was just as gentle, it said more than word could describe. They broke apart to hear the faint sound of engines overhead, the Prometheus was docking and they were right underneath the landing pad. They made their way to the pad to aid the men and women. General O'Neill was the first man to walk off of the air craft and was grinning.

"At ease, we need to get the ZPM to Dr McKay as quickly as possible." He handed the ZPM to Isabel, she and Ryan led him to Rodney's lab, "Well..." He started along the way. "Do you know where Daniel is?"

"With all due respect sir, I know about the bet and you're going to be fifty dollars richer." She smiled to him. "Doctor Jackson is up in the jumper bay, he's been enjoying translating some of the writing." Isabel led the general to a small transporter and stepped inside. "We need to use this in order to Dr McKay's lab, Lieutenant Langer will follow us." Once the General was inside, Isabel pressed one of the dots on the map and the doors closed, a second later the door opened and the two stepped out. "His lab is only a small distance away." Once Ryan had once again joined them they made their way to the lab and stepped through the door.

"Carter, I've got a surprise for you." The general said once he was stood behind her chair.

Sam spun around and was in shock to see who was talking to her. "You're here already sir. I thought it was a three week trip!" She had finally started to look pregnant but the General only realised as an afterthought, proceeding to remember the night she had gotten pregnant.

"Sam, it has been three weeks, unlike the two of you I've been forced to get rest every night by the medical staff. Dr Beckett and I have gotten one step closer to finding out how the wraith ships are constructed." Isabel informed them. "That's not funny!" Isabel's eyes hardened on Rodney and she was almost snarling at him.

"Anyway, we've got the ZPM here for you guys but I'm a little worried about cutting her off." The general informed them. They all knew that he was talking about Isabel but let it go just in case she snapped at them.

"Right," Isabel agreed now that she had calmed down. "I need to get this down to the power core. I just need Dr McKay to give me the tablet." She held her hand out and placed a computer into it. "Thank you."

"All you need to do is insert this cable into the third slot from the left, input the command code and enter the ZPM into the gap." He told her. Isabel just rolled her eyes and left the room. "That's why I don't like teenagers." He vented to Sam once Isabel was out of ear shot.

"He gets on my nerves sometimes." Isabel expelled to Ryan. He was now carrying the ZPM as Isabel finished off some of the command codes. "He can't even finish basic maths." She muttered as they made their way down, and down, and down.

Dr Zalenka was regulating the power conduits for new input of power. "Thank goodness someone who actually takes this seriously is here!" The check man exclaimed. "Rodney treats this like a little kid colouring in pictures." He started to ramble on in his own language as he moved aside to allow Isabel access to the console.

Isabel worked for about thirty seconds before she took the ZPM from Ryan and placed it into the empty gap. "All done, I'd better get back to Dr Beckett. For two reasons, this stitching is useless right now and I will not rest until he removes it and we still have work to do." Isabel gave Ryan a chaste kiss on the lips and walked from the room, leaving him looking at her.

"Now I know what that look is." Dr Zalenka laughed as he finished his original work. "You don't just like her and I can see it. Perhaps a bit too much, you know that when this is over that you'll lose her. Go and tell her about this little conversation or I will." Zalenka carried on his work as Ryan rand down the corridors hoping to catch Isabel before she got to the infirmary.

He ran up who knows how many flights of stairs and along endless corridors until he reached the infirmary level and stopped in his tracks, there was someone following him. He ran around a corner and waited behind one of the pillars before a man wearing an SGC uniform went running past. Ryan then followed him until he reached an empty corridor. The man pulled out a silver ball and it clouded up. Ryan activated the computer and started filming. The man spoke in goa'uld for a large portion of the conversation until he spoke "Hail Osiris!" then he ended the conversation and started walking towards Ryan's position. Ryan shut off the camera and ran from to the infirmary.

"Isabel, we've got a problem. One of the men who came on the Prometheus is Jaffa. Do you know where Dr Jackson and Teal'c… never mind." Ryan saw that Daniel was being escorted by Teal'c into the infirmary. Daniel was clutching his elbow and Teal'c, well Teal'c looked like he usually did. "Guys, I recorded a conversation between this Jaffa and Osiris, I need to know what he was saying."

"I believe that this jaffa is telling Osiris about the young warrior and yourself, he says that you are becoming intimate and that she must arrive quickly if she is to execute her goal. It is most unfortunate that this situation has risen. We must find a way to protect the young warrior at all costs." Teal'c informed them, it was the most he had spoken since they had started their mission. It wasn't a bad thing either.

"Dr Beckett! I've found it!" Isabel exclaimed. "The ships are grown from scratch, it's amazing. It must attach itself to some collection of plants and then change and replicate the plant cells. That might be why you've found wraith facilities in the middle of forests and sometimes on dessert planets." Isabel was giddy with excitement. "It's what we've been looking for!"

"Wow Isabel that must be great because I haven't seen you this happy… ever. But we need to find Colonel Shepard, there is a jaffa on base and it's sending out a signal to Osiris, she knows where Atlantis is and she knew the co-ordinates to get here. Your life might be in danger if we stay here much longer." Ryan was staring at Isabel and was very sombre.

Isabel waited in the jumper bay, with Daniel, Teal'c and Ryan, for Colonel Shepard and his team to arrive and take them to a safe planet, if there was such a thing. They left Atlantis after a goodbye from Dr Weir, General O'Neill and Colonel Carter who appeared to be standing awfully close for a commanding officer and his second in command. Isabel once again went through the stargate hoping that for once they weren't being followed. In the sanctity of the back of the jumper, Isabel and Ryan kissed one last time before Isabel made her way to her place at the front of the jumper.

The General grabbed Sam's wrist, stopping her from leaving the control room. "We need to talk about that." He nodded down to Sam's stomach before looking lovingly into her eyes.


	10. Just Another Bad Guy

**Chapter 10: Just Another Bad Guy**

Isabel writhed in pain as her life was stolen from her body and brutally crushed back in, the worst part was that the wraith all had one mind, the same thoughts and echo multiplied in volume as they clawed at her brain. She wasn't going to crack, safe in the knowledge that her comforter was nearby. It was slowly changing her as every ounce of energy was taken and given just as freely. Small amounts of blood were dripping from her wound, spreading across her chest and drying, like a thick sticky paste. If she didn't find a way out soon, she would beg them to kill her for the last time. She would hover on the edge of death, slowly slipping into an unending sleep, only to be dragged back to the land of the living. She was tired, she wanted consciousness to slip her grasp and let her fall away from the torture around her but pain only tightened her grip, clenching her fists around awareness. Finally, numb to the pain, her thoughts slowly sank back into the furthest corners of her mind as her dreams filled her mind with darkness, only to lose sight of small glimmers of hope.

"She will be awake when I return!" The wraith hisses at Ryan, his voice dripping with pleasure. He left the cell and sauntered down the dark corridors leaving them alone once more.

"He can't keep doing this, she might die from the pressure it will put on her body. We need to get someone else to go." Colonel Shepard informed them. "I haven't had that happen to me before but I've seen a close friend die from it. I just didn't think that they would give her life back."

"They obviously need her for something; maybe they think she has all of the iris codes." Lieutenant Ford thought aloud. "It could want her for something else, something only she has. Or something she knows but the rest of us don't."

"Her ability!" Ryan exclaimed. Lieutenant Ford looked at him questioningly, as did Teyla. Rodney just looked at him like he usually did. "She has the ability to hear someone's thoughts. If she focuses her mind enough se can search through their minds." As he spoke Isabel sat up. Immediately he went to her side and helped her stand.

"I know what you've been talking about. When I'm asleep, thoughts are much louder. None of you can go. They want me to join their side, become a wraith worshiper." Isabel spoke with all the effort she could. "By taking my life and giving it back, they hope to crack me. They think that by having me at their mercy that they can change me."

"We know that it must be painful. A few minutes after they take you , we only hear screams. At first we thought that he wraith were feeding on some of the people they've culled but a few minutes after the screams stop, one of them walks in carrying you. We kind of got the pattern by then." Daniel informed her. He looked too calm for this situation.

"It must be a little unsettling for you, me coming back, more blood soaked through my clothes. I'm just glad they didn't do a full search before they sent me back." Isabel reached behind her back and drew out a knife and what appeared to be a gun. "I took them from one of the wraith that got me first. I can't tell the difference between them. But none of them noticed." Isabel threw the gun to Teal'c and gave Teyla the knife. "What? Teal'c has the best aim and Teyla is the best in hand to hand combat." She informed them innocently.

"I'm assuming this is part of a plan." Teyla spoke as she slipped the knife up her sleeve. Teal'c silently inclined his head in agreement as he also placed the weapon out of sight.

"Yes it does. I have another one of those gun things that I will use to take out the wraith as they take me to be… I've got a better idea." Isabel ran over to the cell door and slid through the gaps with ease. "I don't know why nobody has tried that before." Isabel released the cell door and led them along dark passageways, stopping them when more wraith were approaching. She led them to the room where they stored their weapons and gear, until a wraith queen blocked their exit.

"You may not leave; you have stolen what belongs to us." The queen screeched. She raised her hand and the word 'kneel' ran through their minds. Isabel and Teal'c stood unaffected as their companions fell to the ground. The wraith queen made her way over to them only to be struck down by two MP-5s in the hands of two outsiders. The group ran from the queen's dead body with their gear and found themselves at what seemed to be a power core. They set charges that would detonate as soon as they left hyperspace. They then stalked the many corridors in search of a way out.

"We need to go to the dart bay; we can then board one and fly to safety." Isabel spoke, they all looked at her and she instantly knew what was wrong. "Colonel, do you know how to fly a wraith dart?" She asked slyly.

"Maybe, depends on whether we can actually get out of the bay. The doors might seal shut when the core blows." He informed her. "But we could always blast them open." Everyone was a little more confident in the plan once he had explained it to them. They ran to the dart bay and Colonel Shepard climbed into the nearest aircraft, beamed them into the storage unit and managed to do so just before the C4 went off. They flew from the hive ship and were shocked to find that they were over the old Athosian home world. As the ship was destroyed the colonel landed the dart and emptied the men and women out of the buffer.

Isabel ran to the DHD and entered the symbol that would send them home, after it was done she collapsed and Colonel Shepard entered the iris code. Ryan lifted Isabel into his arms and carried her to the safety of Atlantis.


	11. Kinda Weird Don't You Think

**Chapter 11: Kinda Weird Don't You Think**

Isabel was lying on an infirmary bed, staring into Ryan's eyes. It turned out that her near death experiences had broken a few of her ribs and torn a few of her arteries. She had just come out of surgery and wasn't allowed to do any pulse raising activities. Dr Beckett's ban on visitors caused her heart rate to spike due to anxiety. He had allowed Ryan into the infirmary to hold her hand until she was allowed to move freely around the city. Isabel had been slipping in and out of consciousness for a few hours due to the oxygen deprivation her heart had experienced, it would continue for a few days until her body had time to recover. Ryan wanted to tell her about his conversation with Dr Zalenka but was worried that she would freak out. He remembered the scientist's words and allowed them to echo in his mind. "You won't lose me." Isabel spoke to him. "If this ever ends I want to ask General O'Neill about staying at the SGC." Isabel squeezed Ryan's hand. "What's the point of me being cleared and having access to all areas of the SGC if I'm being shipped back to England when this is over. I know as much as you and could be a big security risk."

"That's not the only reason you want to stay is it?" Ryan asked her.

"Well the food here is to die for." She humorously retaliated, making sure he could hear the sarcasm in her voice. "It was at first. Then came my experience of gate travel and my poorly hidden feelings about a certain air force officer." Isabel smiled to him before she started coughing again. By the time she had calmed down Isabel had fallen asleep and torn her stitching. Ryan simply kissed her forehead, then her cheeks and finally her lips, before letting one of the nurses patch her up.

Ryan walked aimlessly through the halls of Atlantis before he found his way to the pier where it had begun. It was the first time they had kissed each other and it made him smile inside. He stood in the very spot he had been that day, looking over the same blue and feeling what he had felt in that in that moment, possibly more. He was worried that she might push herself too far and have to endure more surgery. She was already going to get a scar down her chest, parallel to her spine and he didn't want her to go through more of them. He thought about what she had told him and was worried that his young genius might not live to see that happen. It had almost happened to her once and he was worried that she might not be so lucky next time.

"She'll be ok." He heard Daniel say. "If she can lead us to safety straight after it then she can survive an operation." Daniel put a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "The general wants to speak to you both, Isabel's just woken up and he needs you there. Good luck" With that Daniel left Ryan to himself. Ryan didn't feel much better but he was willing to make the effort up to see what the general wanted.

The spacious halls gave him time to think, it let him reflect on what he had heard from two of the scientists. Maybe he would lose her and maybe it was a big risk but his thoughts kept wandering back to the kiss. Her sweet lips, the feel of her soft skin against his rough touch and the spark of electricity that had flowed between them. He shook the thoughts out of his head as he made his way to Isabel's bedside, standing to attention and turning to General O'Neill. He gave the general a crisp salute and awaited orders.

"At ease, Lieutenant." Jack informed him. Ryan took a seat next to Isabel; he held her hand and was stroking the back of it with his thumb. "Isabel has told me about her wish to stay at the SGC, she has also told me about some of her ability's exceptions! I don't fully understand so I'll let her explain." The general shoved his hands into his pockets and awaited her explanation.

"There are some people whose thoughts I can hear wherever they are. Now, I have started to hear that with you. I want to stay because I feel that if I can keep in contact with you through my ability then I might be able to help more than normal." Isabel knew that Ryan was a little sceptical but she didn't mind. "You were thinking about what I said to you before on the way up here."

"That's unfair! True, but unfair. I won't be playing poker with you any time soon." He lied. Ryan was starting to become a little suspicious. "There's something else isn't there?"

"Yes, do you remember the scar that I had on my wrist a few days ago?" Isabel watched Ryan nod and showed him her injured arm, there was no evidence that the wound had ever been there. "I always wondered why I never broke a bone when I was younger. Apparently I have this enzyme in my system that helps boost my immune system and healing process. After my encounter with the wraith the enzyme has multiplied in my system. I don't have any more broken ribs."

"And the stress it put on her body caused her to pass out only a few hours ago. Now that the healing process is over she shouldn't pass out any more." Ryan was not making sense of the situation; it was hard enough that she had been ill but she was better? Something was definitely wrong here.

That was when alarms went off, Ryan and General O'Neill ran to the control room to receive the biggest shock in their lives. "Doctor Weir, I'm not sure if this is possible but we're receiving Isabel's IDC code." There was a raging battle going on inside of Doctor Weir's head.

"Atlantis, have you lowered the shield? I have wraith advancing from all sides! I am under heavy fire!" They heard Isabel's shattered voice call. The radio message made everything clear for Atlantis.

"Defence teams stand by." Dr Weir shouted from the balcony. She turned to face the gate technician and simply nodded. Two wraith stunner blasts flew across the gate room, hitting one of the personnel shortly before Isabel ran through.

Isabel handed her weapon over to one of the SFs as the gate disconnected. With guns trained on her she threw her hands in the air in surrender. "What's going on here?" Isabel questioned of Doctor Weir. Isabel's confused face caused Ryan's heart to break apart. If she was the real Isabel then nobody could stop her from overcoming the man she was faced with. "Doctor Weir, what do you mean 'there's two of me'?"


	12. Love Ain't Always Down To Chemicals

**Chapter 12: Love Ain't Always Down To Chemicals**

"How will I know which one the real one is? We could always ask them questions but the other might know everything about us, it might be impossible to tell." Ryan was contemplating. All of the eyes in the room were looking at him, almost daring him to try interrogation. "You all realise that it might not work, if both Isabels know something simple like iris codes then it would have all been for nothing." They were still egging him on, daring him to dig a little deeper. "One of us could ask her something personal that they wouldn't need to force from her."

"Then it's settled, you can go and ask her something about your relationship. You can talk to the Isabel in the infirmary first; she is more than likely the real one so it will spare you too much pain." Colonel Shepard finalised, he slapped Ryan on the back on the back once and left the room followed by the rest of the attendants. The colonel stopped and turned back to see that Ryan hadn't moved. "Lieutenant, is there something that you're worried about, something you're not telling us?"

"I'm worried that we might lose her, they might have made two copies to deceive us and the wraith are still torturing her as we speak." Ryan tried to hold back a tear from running down his flushed cheek. "I'm sorry sir, I'll go down to the infirmary immediately." Ryan left the briefing room and almost ran to the infirmary.

"Lieutenant, she's just gone through a post-surgery analysis and she seems to be infected with what appears to be Nano-bots." The Scottish doctor tried to inform him but Ryan was too worried to listen, he walked straight past the doctor and sat next to Isabel's bed.

"Hey! You came back; I was worried that you might have left for good." Isabel exclaimed, she looked at Ryan and her brow furrowed. "What's wrong?" Ryan was looking at the young girl doubtfully. She could tell by the look on his face that there was something missing in her greeting.

"Do you still remember my name? You never use it anymore; you will use the names of the people of the Atlantis personnel but not mine or anyone's form the SGC." Ryan was cut short by an alarm and a call to the primary holding cell. "I'll be back soon, I promise you. And Isabel, stay here."

Ryan entered the cell room to a shock. "Ryan let me out; they're going to kill me. Ryan! Help me!" Isabel screamed out as she hit the shield blocking her escape, each hit caused her to sharply inhale in pain, a tear slowly falling down her face. Isabel dropped to her knees and openly wept. "Ryan, you once told me that you loved me, why are you so unsure now?" Isabel raised her head to look at the man she loved, trying to convey her pain. "I know you don't believe me," she continued, "I knew what you were thinking the moment I stepped through the stargate. You think that I'm the fake one, but think about what happened during your escape." Isabel stood up and levelled her gaze with Ryan, with only a force field keeping them apart. And a cell door.

Ryan slowly aced through his memory, allowing Isabel to see every detail. "Firstly, when I tried to steal a weapon from the wraith the first time they stunned me and cut my arm following the artery but never puncturing it. They then fed on me and gave me back my life, fully healing the cut but leaving a scar behind." Isabel raised her left arm to his eyes; Ryan could see that so far she was telling the truth by the pink and irritated flesh that formed a perfectly parallel line to her artery. Second, the prison doors have a shield running through them, stopping prisoners from doing exactly what that imposter did. Third, why didn't you have to fight any wraith? Don't justify it with 'she must have been the real one and heard the wraith's thoughts', when I made it to the gate I was being followed by fifteen wraith and not one alarm went off during your escape. Now tell me that I can't possibly be the real one." With that any sat in the middle of the cell with her back to Ryan, he knew what he had to do. Ryan opened the cell door, walked in (all after dismissing the guards) and knelt down in front of her. "You love me again!" Isabel exclaimed softly through tears of joy, smiling up at Ryan.

"Who said I stopped?" Ryan placed his hands on Isabel's hips and pulled her into a deep passionate kiss. Isabel raised her hands from her lap and loosely wrapped them around his neck, her hand caressing his skin. The kiss never heated and the few stolen moments were enough to last a lifetime for the star-crossed lovers. Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter saw what happened and was crying. Not because she was happy for them but because she could never experience that with the man she loved. All of the small, carefully placed touches and the jokes, his terrible jokes. All of the stolen glances and caresses under the table in the briefing room back on earth. They could never hug like they wanted to, they could never kiss like they wanted to and they could never tell each other how they felt. She'd even lost his child, their child. There was nothing tying her to her general anymore and she couldn't bare that.

What next shocked her was that all of a sudden she was facing an Asgard with the rest of SG1, general O'Neill and Doctor Weir, not forgetting Romeo and Juliet who hadn't noticed the change in scenery. "I am high commander Thor of the supreme Asgard fleet, I am here to offer you news and our thanks." Thor gained many shocked looks and so he continued. "The goa'uld Osiris was unfortunately not destroyed on my journey here but I did destroy Ba'al, Nirti and lord Yuu. I was originally sent here to thank you for finding the child of the four races. I believe that you know the Nox, Asgard and Ancients, formerly known as Alterans but you say that you have not met the Furlings. I am able to tell you that you have met them, I believe that they now call themselves the Tollan." Everybody stood shocked for a few seconds but Isabel her head a little.

"I don't mean to be rude by interrupting this little silence of ours but who is this 'child of the four races'?" Isabel could almost understand the thoughts of the strange grey alien in front of her. There were a few words that she didn't understand but she got the idea that he was deciding whether he should reveal their identity yet.

"I have decided to reveal this information." Thro finally spoke. He raised his hand and pointed it at Isabel. "It is you, young child." They all looked at the Asgard. Yes, the small grey alien with no trousers had rendered General Jack O'Neill speechless. You could never stop him from making a joke while looking down the wrong end of a staff weapon but right now, even he couldn't think of a pun. "Have you all overcome your state of shock?" Thor went on to repair the hyper drive engines in ship while he was still stared at by the tau'ri, and jaffa, he had beamed aboard his ship.


	13. Message In A Bottle

**Chapter 13: Message In A Bottle**

After what they had learnt about Isabel they had placed her into protective custody. At least that's what they had called it. She was back in the cell and was almost bored out of her mind from waiting and waiting… and waiting… and waiting some more. She amused herself by constantly contracting and expanding the force shield, it never got so small that it touched her and it never got so big that it harmed her guards. She remained inside of the force field at all times, mostly. Once or twice she would lower the shield but keep the door closed. She knew that there was no point in trying to run away. She just sat in the middle of the cell, amused and safe. After she had been locked up she started experimenting with what her mind could do. She would access Rodney's computer and send him messages like _'Meredith, colonel Carter will never fall for you!'_ or _'Maybe you should stop being a pervert and find yourself a girlfriend!'_ he would always reply saying _'Who are you?', 'What do you want?'_ or _'Why are you doing this?'_ It was only when he had tried to track the source that he found it had come from the cell block. He was the only person that had taken the time to talk to her face to face, even if it was to tell her how immature she was being.

Isabel was in the process of manipulating her cell when she was distracted by the mind of someone strategically thinking something through. Wondering how to get someone to understand, no! To agree. The mind was getting ever closer and as it did it got louder and more chaotic. Then all of the chaos stopped, it had calmed and the small whisper seemed uneasily close, as if it was right behind her. Isabel turned to face the new presence to be met with a shock. Dr Weir had a slight look of grief in her eyes and seemed almost like she was mourning. "Isabel," she started "I have the displeasure of facing you with a difficult escape from your current situation. The IOA has allowed for you to be sent back home for the next few months where your interaction with the human race can be assessed and you will either be cleared for full access of the SGC and Atlantis or be confined due to any threat you may pose to the residents of earth."

Isabel was angry for several reasons; 1, the IOA couldn't trust someone who had lived on earth for fifteen years. 2, the IOA or Dr Weir, maybe both, did not think that she could be trusted. 3, there had been a few hints in that little proposal that she was not human and not welcome. "I don't actually have a choice in this do I?"

"Unfortunately not. You don't have a choice."

Isabel had been back in England for two weeks and she was already missing the SGC, Atlantis and, most of all, Ryan. She had gone back to school two days ago and hated it. Her time at the SGC had changed her; she was more than just a teenager, she was in love and being haunted by the fact that she was being haunted by the fact that she was in love. Emily and Leila had been trying to cheer her up but it wasn't working. She knew that she was being watched and she knew that it was just an excuse to permanently keep her away from the stargate. She got a letter from Ryan every few days, detailing what had been going on at the SGC and how much he was missing her. She would write back short letters only saying a few words about what had been happening, the rest would be about him. She would spend her time in her room looking out of the window, waiting for something interesting to happen. Her short stay at the SGC was almost like a dream and she now had to wake up and carry on with her life. If it wasn't for Ryan's letters, she wouldn't have believed it was real.

It was that time of day again; she would sit on the bottom step of her stairs, staring at the door in front of her, waiting for the letter to drop onto the rough muddy mat on her floor. The usual sound of fingernails on metal did not shake Isabel from her daydreaming state, but a knock on the door. The postman was stood on her doorstep holding a large box with the usual pile of letters on top. Isabel blocked out all of the sound around her and focused on the procedure that usually came next.  
Take the parcel.  
Sign the book.  
Say thank you.  
Close the door.  
Search for Ryan's letter.  
Isabel was shocked to find that not only were two letters addressed to her but so was the package. She hurried up the stairs, forced her sister to leave the room and slammed the door shut. She placed her mail on the floor by her bed as she neatened it up and retrieved her small willow box from under her bed that contained all of Ryan's letters. She neatly placed the four objects on her bed and clambered on. She first opened the letter with hand writing that she vaguely recognised.

 _Isabel, I would like to apologise for not contacting you sooner however there has been a debate here at the SGC about who would inform you of this. The IOA has reduces your parol time to one month, meaning that you have only two more weeks before you can come back. Thank you for telling Rodney to back off, Atlantis felt like hell working with the man. You probably won't be affected much by this but the President has made it possible for General O'Neill and I to be in a relationship. He proposed, I hope you'll be there for the wedding.  
Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter._

Isabel was amazed by the new revelation. She only had to wait for two more weeks until she could go back, and Sam finally would get her happy ending. Isabel only had to listen to Sam mope for a month and yet she felt like she had been there for their entire story. She then opened the letter that appeared to have had the address printed onto the envelope.

 _Miss Hastings, I am writing to inform you that General Jack O'Neill has been promoted and is no longer in charge of the SGC directly. I, General Hank Landry, have been assigned to the position and have been informed of your current situation. The President and I would like to meet you in two weeks when you are there for your review.  
Sincerely, General Hank Landry_

Isabel was starting to feel depressed; there was no sign of contact from Ryan that day. Isabel placed the letters into her box, but only inside of a different compartment, and leaned back to lie down. Her back came into contact with something hard that startled her. Isabel shifted around to see the package that she had received. She grabbed the scissors that she kept under her bed and used the edge to split the tape that sealed the package. Isabel peeled open the cardboard to see a small 45mm hand gun, turning it over in her hand she recognised it as the gun they had issued her with in the SGC. Also inside the box was an ordinary brown envelope, she ripped it open to find a short note and a shooting licence. Isabel placed the note on the bed before reading it so she could get rid of the box; while she was releasing the flaps on the bottom of the box another envelope fell onto the floor with a loud thud. Isabel stuffed it into her pocket and continued with her task. When Isabel made it up to her room again she carefully unfolded the note in anticipation of her favourite message, a message from Ryan.

 _Isabel, I hope you don't mind this being short. We destroyed Osiris' ship but I'm not sure if he got out or not. You'd better stay on the safe side by carrying this gun with you at all times, just in case he comes after you. I love you. Ryan xx_

Isabel retrieved the willow box from under her bed and placed Ryan's message among all of the others she had received from him. Isabel then drew out the envelope from her pocket and held it in her hands for a few minutes while puzzling over its contents. Isabel slipped her finger through the small gap at the corner of the seal and watched as the envelope was slowly opened. Isabel tipped the contents into her hand and smiled. It was a carved wooden necklace from the Athosians. The Athosians are Tayla's people; they survived the cullings on their planet by seeking shelter with Atlantis. Isabel took the gun and licence, placing in the lining of her bag since it was torn and she placed the necklace around her neck and let it fall over her heart, tucking it under her shirt.


	14. Never Said Goodbye

**Chapter 14: Never Said Goodbye**

Emily and Leila were staring at Isabel in dis-belief. First, she was carrying a gun! Second, she was trying to make it seem like it wasn't illegal. And third, she hadn't told them that she had fallen in love with an eighteen year old air force officer from America.

"When were you going to tell us?" Leila was a little hurt. It broke Isabel's heart to hear the slight cry in her voice. "I thought that you trusted us."

"I'm really sorry. I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement that is forcing me into silence." Before Emily had a chance to yell, again, Isabel walked over to her and clamped a hand over her mouth. "If I was allowed to explain it to you I would but I'm being watched so I can't. Will you just drop it?"

"I'm sorry." Leila's voice appeared from behind her. "We shouldn't have pushed you; we don't want to give you a reason to use that gun."

 _Speak for yourself!_ Emily thought. _I don't believe this crap, she's lying to us!_

"I'm not lying to you…" That was when Isabel was engulfed in a white light. _Great!_ "Hi, Thor." Isabel greeted the little grey alien in front of her.

"Isabel, we have spoken with the IOA and they have agreed to council with the four races." Thor explained slowly. "We have brought you here to do so, after speaking with the rest of the races we have agreed that the council will take place on board of my ship."

Isabel was led to a large room with a hexagonal table. There was one chair on five of the six sides and a side with no chair, Isabel assumed that it would be the place for the Ancients. The room filled with a bright white light and each of the seats were filled, apart from one. "You must sit here." Thor instructed as he gestured to the empty chair.

Isabel took her seat and sat looking uncomfortably at the host gathered in front of her. She still felt the necklace on her skin and it wasn't helping comfort her like it usually did. Thor took his seat also and the meeting started.

 _Look at her. She doesn't even look like she is the right person._ One person's thoughts stirred. _I hope Thor brought the right girl._ Another thought. _What a load of rubbish!_ The familiar voice of General O'Neill echoed.

 _I have always found it strange being able to hear the thoughts of people regarding your own race. It gets easier in time._ One of the Nox remarked.

 _You can hear it too._ Isabel asked shocked. _I thought I was the only person who could hear it!_

 _No, there are few of us with this skill. You should find it a gift that you can do this._

 _I'll have to disagree with you._ Isabel tried to listen to the rest of the introduction Thor was giving but she had heard it already on the way over here.

For the rest of the meeting she had no need to listen with her own ears. She found it interesting to look at herself from across the room, hearing what people thought about her slightly vacant look. Whenever she was asked a question she would mostly give the answer they wanted to hear but occasionally she would say the opposite and watch them start an argument. She felt that she would answer calmly and slowly say what they wanted to hear until she made them agree with her. Manipulation was fun.

By the end of the meeting she was going to go with the Nox and learn about how to unlock all of her 'abilities' that she had been given. The Ancients would also visit and teach her what she needed while she finished growing up; if she would grow up. Thor hoped that she wouldn't age once she reached sixteen and wouldn't die of natural causes. The only way she would die is if she was beheaded. Living with the Nox meant that she would learn the art of healing so being shot or stabbed wouldn't kill her.

"Thank you for helping us come to this arrangement General O'Neill." Thor said before beaming him back down to earth. Thor individually thanked each representative before they left. When it came to the Nox, Thor called Isabel over one last time. "Are you ready to leave?"

"I am." Isabel gulped. She stood with the Nox and took one last look at the empty table before she was sent to the Nox' homeworld. In the blink of an eye she was looking at the trees and the sky. The gate was still buried and they were stood on top of its burial site. The large Nox city wasn't hidden anymore. It took its place in the sky and looked perfect, she wasn't sure if it was real but she hoped it was. It was amazing to see what a simple people could do. She knew that her thoughts weren't private any more but she didn't mind if he heard this. It was astonishing to see it for herself.

"You will learn much child. You should probably learn how to shield your thoughts." He joked. That was the first time she had heard one of the Nox make a joke. She didn't even think they could make jokes. "You need to learn that very quickly."

"Yeah, I'll try." Isabel sighed.

"It's not bad to miss them." He soothed. "It's good. You will have someone to fight for."

"More like someone to have nightmares over." She retorted. It was depressing. She didn't even get to say goodbye.

"That will make it better for you when your studies have finished. You will be able to return more frequently."

"I suppose that's better than the alternative." Isabel didn't like being away from Earth but it was too late to object now. "Let's get started." Isabel sighed as they walked over hills and valleys towards the city in the sky.


	15. Over And Over Again

**Chapter 15: Over And Over Again**

Everyone was gone. There was an eerie silence as Isabel walked through the halls of the SGC. The emergency lighting illuminated the dead bodies on the ground; Jaffa and human. Arrows painted on the walls in blood directed her to the General's office. His freshly mutilated carcass was sat on the chair behind his desk. Isabel picked up the blood splattered file on his desk; it was a brief for SG1 and 2. Isabel slowly turned her head to look through the window at the briefing room. Eight dead bodies were scattered across the room, one on the stairs and another reaching for the alarm. Isabel blinked and all of the bodies were lined up against the window, hands out stretched. Reaching for her, asking for her to join them. Isabel heard the engaging of a staff weapon behind her. The General's body was now replaced with Ryan's. And he was holding the staff weapon to her chest.

"You did this to me."

Isabel was sweating and panting in the small cot the Nox had offered her on the planet's surface. Nafrayu peeped his head round the thin curtain of vine that was separating Isabel from the forest around her. She just nodded at him and he walked over to her bed side.

"Why does your sleep trouble you?" Nafrayu asked her, holding a cold rag to her head. "Doesn't it help your kind?"

"It's not the sleep itself; it's the same nightmare I've been having for weeks now." Isabel reassured the boy as she sat up, taking the cloth from his hand and placing it on the floor beside her feet. "You don't need to worry about me. They'll go away soon."

Nafrayu's forehead creased in protest to what she had said. He was worrying about her, worrying about her far too much for a little boy. He placed his hand on her shoulder. "You need to rest, you might be sick."

"I'm not sick; I just need to occupy myself." Isabel pulled her over shirt on top of her vest top that she had been wearing in place of a pyjama T-shirt. Isabel also pulled on her converse and left the tent holding his hand.

"She's sick and she won't rest." Nafrayu burst to Opher, who was working on fixing the roof of the hut that had broken over the night. He dragged her over to him and he looked directly into her eyes.

"I'm not sick. They're only nightmares." Isabel shrugged.

Opher placed a hand on either side of her head. "This is no ordinary dream." He said as he closed his eyes. "This seems to be the image of the future as long as you stay on your current path."

Opher rushed inside of the hut and swiftly ran out, just as quickly, with an arm full of pots and vials. He placed them all down in front of the slowly dying fire and selected different herbs and oils as he mixed them together in the lid of an empty pot. "This will show us the path you are currently on. We only need to know what direction your life is headed in now in order to change what you saw."

Isabel's brow creased as he explained exactly what he was doing. "You don't think that this might show me the path I'll take after I've seen it. We could be changing it now, as we speak."

"Yes, that is deeply worrying." Opher threw the lid into the fire anyway and watched as the flames licked the contents. "Close your eyes and take my hands." Opher said from the other side of the fire. "We will be the only ones seeing this; you have no need to worry."

Isabel did as she was told and closed her eyed once Opher's hands had firmly gripped hers. She saw herself surrounded by so many different people. Nafrayu, Opher, Lya, Sam, Daniel, Ryan… and the Goa'uld. Slowly Nafrayu started to fade from sight, as did Opher and Lya. Slowly everyone disappeared until there was only a single person left. Ryan. Something started to form in his hand as he walked towards Isabel. A staff weapon. Slowly Isabel saw herself fade away as Ryan became less of a shadow and more real than he had before. Suddenly the flames flared up from the fire, scorching Isabel's hand and face. Opher had already released her hands and was helping her move away from the fire.

"That is deeply worrying. We saw two different futures. You saw the course you are on now and I saw the path you must continue to take." Opher made his way into Isabel's hut and emerged with the bag that Nafrayu had made for her birthday. "You must leave. Now!"

"What? I can't just pack up and run away." Isabel objected.

"You must. If you don't all will be lost. You must go now." He shoved the bag into Isabel's hand and one of her old T-shirts. "You will need to look more like your old self."

Isabel removed the Nox over shirt that she was wearing and pulled on her black T-shirt. It seemed she was wearing all black now. Nafrayu handed Isabel her gun and thigh strap, after strapping it on she gave the little boy a squeeze and gripped his hand. "It's time for me to go now." She said, still crouched on the ground. "I promise that I won't forget about you." Isabel kissed the little boy's forehead and held his hand all the way to the gate.

Isabel pulled out her radio and GDO before she punched in the Iris code. The radio crackled for a second before she heard a familiar voice over the radio. "It's safe to come through now Miss Hastings. Is anyone coming through with you?"

Isabel looked down at Nafrayu and then up into Opher's eyes. Opher gave her a small nod. Isabel clicked on the radio and answered "One of the Nox will be coming with me, he's seemed to grow attached." Nafrayu beamed up at her and skipped with her to the event hosison. Nafrayu took a deep breath before walking through. Isabel chuckled and stepped through the gate .

Sam's lips turned up a little into a smile and she saw the little boy clutching Isabel's hands. The SFs in the gate room pointed their guns at the little boy, staring solidly down their sights at him.

"Stand down." The General alerted them. Immediately, they loweed their weapons and slowly backed away from the ramp. "Welcome back to Earth Miss Hastings."

Isabel smiled up at General Landry and the company with him, SG1. They paced quickly into the room and Nafrayu relaxed when he recognised the faces looking up at him. "Thank you General." Isabel beamed. "It feels strange somehow but it still feels like home." Nafrayu was still clutching to Isabel 's hand as she walked down the ramp. "You guys should already know Nafrayu. He was one of the Nox you met a few years ago."

"Well you will need to get down to the infirmary and then come up to my office for a long overdue debriefing." The General half reminded half ordered.

After a very quick stop in the infirmary, Isabel and Nafrayu were waiting for the General to finish his phone call. They were sat on the two chairs in front of the General's desk. Nafrayu stood up and sat on Isabel's lap, he obviously was still a little affraid of the SGC. The General placed the phone onto the reciever. "So what brings you back to earth?"

"Well, I was having this recurring nightmare where the Goa'uld had killed everyone in the SGC. Opher told me that I might have been seeing the future and that I had to come back and fix it. I think something is coming and I'm not going to let it destroy everyone."

"We destroyed the last of the Goa'uld just a few months before you came through the gate." General Landry informed them. "You're a little late but you might as well stay, as long as you have finished your studies."

Nafrayu tightly wrapped his arms around Isabel's neck. "Please don't leave me."

"I have to but I promise that I'll come back for you." Isabel took her hand out of Ryan's and squeezed the boy tightly to her. "I promise I'll come back. I'd never leave you behind. Anyway, what would Opher say if he found out I'd left you behind?"

"You really promise?"

"Course I do. And I always keep my promises." Isabel kissed the boy's forehead and dropped him onto the floor. "You need to do what he General says from now OK?"

Nafrayu nodded He walked over to the General with a big smile on his face. The general took the boy's hand and led him into his office.

Isabel was directed to a locker that had her name on it. She opened it up to see a pair of shorts just like the ones she was wearing, a black vest top and several 3/4 button up shirts (black, green and sandy). Isabel also spotted some deodorant and dog tags. It seemed like she was officially part of the team. She stepped into one of the many showers and turned the heat right up. The water washed over her body, almost burning her but that was how she liked it. She could think now, she thought about everything that had happened over the past year and wondered how her life was so screwed up. But then again, nobody's life is perfect so... moving on. Isabel cleaned her hair and skin only to realise just how dirty she was when the water ran down the drain black and soapy. Isabel was in the shower for half an hour before the brown in water started to fade lighter and lighter until it was completely clear. Isabel then switched the shower from boiling hot to freezing cold, it was bad for her skin but would make her hair a lot easier to manage once it started drying. She finally turned off the water and pulled on the clothes she had selected from her locker after drying the water from her skin. After changing, Isabel looked closely at the dog tags in her hands. They said 'Miss A Hastings, SG1, 083917' She smiled to herself and slid them around her neck, tucking them under her shirt.

She left the Locker room and made her way to General Landry's office to find out where she was going to be working for the foreseeable future, and to collect Nafrayu who must have been in the General's office for an hour at least. She saw the door open and the General inside, he seemed a natural around little kids. After savouring the short moment, Isabel knocked on the door frame and waited for the General's reply. Nafrayu and the General both looked up instantly, the little boy running towards her with almost too much force that she was almost knocked to the ground. The General beckoned her in and pulled out a few files from the cabinet behind him.

"These contain the details of your assignments, you can complete them at your own pace but don't take so long that it's painful." The General gave her the files once she had sat down on one of the chairs, Nafrayu clinging to her leg. "Dr Jackson would also like for you to help him with this." General Landry puled open one of the drawers in his desk and pulled out a thick file, it looked more like a brick. "All of the details are inside. We just need to agree on what to do about the young boy that has grown so attached to you lately."

Isabel took a long look down at the boy resting his head in her lap. She knew that he would have to go home but it was almost unfair to make him leave so suddenly. She looked back up at the General questioningly, luckily the little boy was either asleep or oblivious to what was being said. "We need to send him home don't we?" Isabel had a frown on her face and looked a little sheepishly at the General. "We need to send him today." Isabel knew that it would be a little harsh on him but there was no other way that this would work seamlessly. He had to go home and Isabel had to be the one to tell him.

Isabel shook the Nafrayu awake and looked down at him lovingly. "We need to take you home now. Opher might start to worry that something went wrong. It's time to say goodbye." The little boy nodded in acknowledgement, he knew that it was time to leave too.

Just seconds after the Stargate had disconnected it whirred back into life and alerted the rest of the base to the incoming wormhole. As the gate engaged, SG2s IDC appeared on screen. Isabel had taken the place of the absent Gate tech and was waiting for orders to open the iris. On command she pressed her hand to the lock and let it open Ryan's way home. A man in uniform stepped through the gate with three people, and they weren't any of the team she knew. They seemed like survivors from some sort of attack. "Stand down, Airmen."

Isabel and the General ran into the gate room, followed shortly by SG1 and a medical team, to greet the newcomers. Isabel grew increasingly worried when the gate shut down.

"Who are these people?" The General demanded of the first man, but somehow he said it with complete kindness in his voice.

"They were the only people I could save from the prior. Sir, the Ori are out of control. They burnt the rest of my team alive and there was nothing that I could do to help them." He had acid in his voice and his eyes hardened once he mentioned his former team. "They destroyed the entire village. We need to do something, and fast, if we are going to have any hope of stopping this from happening again."

"Very well. I want you to go to the infirmary and take a week of leave for you to come to terms with what you witnessed before you our debriefing." With that, the General left the Gate room and walked back up to his office.

Sam took a step forward and placed a hand on Isabel's shoulder. She knew what that meant and it wasn't a good thing. "Why don't you come with us tonight? Jack and the rest of the team are going to O'Malley's for dinner tonight so it might do you good if you came with us. Anyway, the last time we were all in the same place was a year ago and Thor dropped a pretty big bomb shell on us."

"That sounds great." Isabel muttered. "I'm sorry I missed the wedding." She added as an afterthought. Before Sam could react she was already asking another question but to the man that had come through the gate. "Was Ryan Langer one of the men on your team?" Her breathing sped up, her heart rate reacting the same way as she waited for his answer.

"You're Isabel aren't you?" The man asks. "I'm so sorry, I couldn't save him. I couldn't save any of them." Once he finished talking he left the room, beckoning the three stranger to follow him.

"Isabel?" Sam asked but Isabel walked away, her face void of all emotion.

THIRTY YEARS LATER

Isabel was the only one who had stayed the same. The rest of them had changed so much, Sam was getting little hints of grey in her hair and her husband was starting to round off a little too much. Jack still put his arm around Sam but it took more effort visibly, especially when Sam would tell him to lose weight. The new SG1 were waiting around the pool table for Isabel to join them after spotting the two Generals, doctors and Jaffa. The new team were very young compared to the group that sat closest to the bar. They were fit and agile but the old SG1 had left those days behind them, they were either retired or only visiting.

Ryan however had gone completely, burned to death by the Ori. Isabel could never forget that. She felt like she was alone sometimes but she also felt like he was still there with her. She liked to think that her gut instinct was him telling her what he thought was right, even though it was stupid.

Life was too different to explain. Isabel had fought along side Sam, Jack, Daniel and Teal'c and now she was fighting with their kids.

"Isabel, how about a game?" Cameron shouted to her from the pool tables. Lieutenant Cameron Jackson, super soldier and super nerd just like his dad but he had traces of Janet in him too. The compassion and the resolve that Isabel had noticed in the little doctor all those years ago. He was bad at pool and always lost but he liked to see the smirk on Isabel's face when she ended a round in minutes. They had been dating for a few months now and she felt strange for doing so, sure he was older than her physically but there was a twenty seven year gap between them.

"Sure." Isabel walked over to him and accepted the cue that Grace had offered her. Major Grace O'Neill and her twin brother Jacob completed Isabel's team. Jacob was like Jack in every way possible and Grace was like Sam, even though she shared the infectious love for dessert that her father had. They were both in contest with each other when they were off-world, it used to drive Isabel and Cameron up the wall at first but now they didn't know what their team would be without it.

They were a family and that was never going to change.


End file.
